


A hound will die for you, but never lie to you

by dragonyfox



Series: to experience incredible things [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, i know nothing past the gaara retrieveal arc except???, kakashi actually does things like the intelligent human he actually is, kakashi's dogs, listen fuck canon tho, team seven gets dogs!!!!, weird bits and bobs that dont make any sense out of context apparently, you get a dog! you get a dog! everyone gets a dog!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 02:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15086885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonyfox/pseuds/dragonyfox
Summary: Kakashi caught his breath and pretended like he was just thinking about what to say. His dogs saw through it. “I’m thinking of having my team sign the dog contract.”Pakkun nodded thoughtfully. “That might piss off some powerful people, boss.”





	1. Kakashi

**Author's Note:**

> No, I don't know anything about game of thrones, it's just a good fuckin line to make a title with.

Kakashi stared up at the ceiling of his apartment. He was late to training today, like he always was. He would probably use the “ran into an old friend and got caught up chatting” excuse. It had been a while since he’d used that one.

He was not caught up chatting with a friend. He was, in fact, thinking about doing something that would catch him a lot of shit. When the council found out about his actions, they’d shit bricks and while it was always entertaining to see the council shit bricks, it wasn’t fun being at the center of their attention when they were angry. What he wanted to do would make them very angry. It would be very good for his students, however, which would probably make the council’s anger totally worth it. Hell, if he played his cards right, he’d be able to get away with it without too much flak.

Actually, by his calculations, it would be more than worth it. It might even be the best course of action, regardless of consequences.

His gaze drifted to the scroll his father gave him when he graduated from the Academy. It was a Hatake heirloom, one of the very few left. He was supposed to hand it down to his children, when he had them. That wasn’t going to happen, unfortunately, for many reasons. It was also acceptable to allow a treasured student to sign it, according to Hatake clan laws, although they couldn’t keep it. If he only let an apprentice sign and never had children, the contract would never be signed again.

That was pretty standard for summoning contracts, though. Summoning contracts were, with few exceptions, passed from parent to child or teacher to student. Orochimaru and Jiraiya had received the snake and toad contracts from their parents, and Tsunade had received hers from her teacher at the hospital, when she was still a novice medic.

Most scrolls only allowed a few signatures, but the dog contract was different: there wasn’t a limit to how many could sign, just who. Which brought Kakashi back to his dilemma: how to get away with having all three of his students sign the dog contract.

Sasuke was the Uchiha heir, now that Itachi was rogue, so he could only have Sasuke sign as an apprentice. Naruto, by rights, should be Jiraiya’s apprentice, when time came, but one could really only sign one summoning contract at a time. Sakura wouldn’t be as much as a problem, except inheritance worked differently among civilians than with shinobi, and he didn’t want to take something away from her if she wanted it.

Claws tapped against the wooden floors of his apartment, and he grunted when the solid weight of Pakkun landed directly on his diaphragm.

“Boss,” he said, his muzzle still dripping water from his quick mid-nap drink, “you’re thinking awfully hard. Talk to us.”

Shiba lifted her head from his knee. “Yeah, boss, tell us what’s up.”

Kakashi caught his breath and pretended like he was just thinking about what to say. His dogs saw through it. “I’m thinking of having my team sign the dog contract.”

Pakkun nodded thoughtfully. “That might piss off some powerful people, boss.”

“I know.”

“It’d be good for them, though,” Uhei said. “You’ve got two flight risks and I’d hate to see the girl wash out. She’s got spunk.”

“I know.”

Bull raised his head as well and barked.

“I know,” Kakashi said again. “But do the benefits outweigh the consequences? Sure, I could anchor Sasuke and Naruto better to the village, but what if that means I’m taking away heritages that are rightly theirs? And Sakura, yeah, this would give her a killer boost that she desperately needs, but what if she washes out anyway? Or doesn’t want to go very far with her shinobi career?”

Pakkun snorted. “Quit chasing flies, boss, you won’t catch them.”

Kakashi put an arm over his eyes. “I know, I know. I just don’t know how to do it the right way. If I do it wrong, I could fuck up either their lives or mine or both.”

Bisuke scratched Kakashi’s leg and wagged his tail, tongue lolling out of his mouth in that smug manner of his.

“Oh,” Kakashi said. “you’re absolutely right, Bisuke. Okay, everyone, let’s head out. I’ve got students to teach.”

.

When he arrived, he was greeted by the usual shouts of, “You’re late!” from Sakura and Naruto and Sasuke’s faux bored glare that actually meant that he was very impatient and wanted to train right now immediately.

“Sorry, I had to find something for you guys,” he lied, lifting the scroll easily. Then, to stave off the usual argument over his bullshitting, he asked, “What do you know about summons?”

Sakura, the darling girl, started talking immediately. “Summons are animals with humanlike intelligence and nearly always live in a separate world from ours. One can obtain a summons by signing a contract with a specific animal species.”

“Very good,” Kakashi said. Praise was good for puppies, and it was high time he started applying that logic to his kids. They’d need to be in the habit soon, and he needed to set a good example. “Anyone else?”

“Contracts are passed down through families or from teacher to student,” Sasuke said, to Kakashi’s surprise. Not that it was surprising that Sasuke knew it, but it was surprising that he offered information of his own volition. Then again, Kakashi thought, Sasuke couldn’t acquire the Uchiha summons because his older, traitorous, murderer brother had the scroll. He might be more than a little bitter about it.

“Correct,” Kakashi said. “Now, next question: how do inheritance laws work?”

“It depends,” Naruto said, “On like, the family. Cause gramps’ family passes down family stuff to the first born in a generation, not by family lines. And Kiba’s family passes stuff down the girl line. Dunno about the Hyuuga, it’s hard to get into their compound. Akamichi stuff gets passed down to the current head’s oldest kid, same with Yamanaka. The Aburame compound is impossible to get into, too, so I don’t know a lot about them, either. Oh! Shikamaru’s family has a weird competition when the current head steps down to see who gets to be the next. It’s kinda cool, actually, he was telling me…”

Kakashi stared at Naruto for a long moment. Of all of his students to know that, he would have never guess it would be Naruto. He’d feel bad about having low expectations for him, but he did have to have chakra explained to him after he’d become a genin. Chakra was, give or take, lesson number one at the academy.

“Naruto, how do you even know all that?” Sakura demanded, cutting Naruto’s rambling short. “You never paid attention in class when we were talking about that stuff!”

Naruto shrugged. “I just hear stuff, y’know?”

Ah, now Kakashi understood. Naruto’s underestimated sneakiness gave him an ability to be places he probably shouldn’t be and therefore overhear things that he wouldn’t otherwise hear. The illicit aspect of overhearing the information also was what made it stick, Kakashi would bet.

“He’s right, though,” Kakashi said. “However, dying or mostly dead clans get exceptions, which is very important for you three.”

That got all three of his students’ attentions quickly, especially Sasuke’s, just as he expected it would. They were so cutely predictable. He’d have to beat that out of them. Kakashi grinned underneath his mask and finally set the scroll he’d been carrying down.

It’s bigger than the scroll he keeps in his pocket, which the kids had seen before. The one he carries isn’t the summoning contract but rather a simple transportation scroll. Most people thought he made his dogs wear their vests just to make them look cute or to be silly. This was true, of course, but there was a more important reason he made them wear the vests: there was a seal sewn into each that connected to the scroll he carried, so he could summon them at will.

Minato and Kushina had designed it together, as a present for his birthday one year.  He’d had a bit of a depressive episode when Pakkun had brought a new pup into the pack and he’d needed to copy it into a new vest, but he’s long since gotten over that. He’ll be teaching his kids the seal when or if their own packs got big enough.

“This is a summoning contract,” he announced. “Now, each of you, tell me what you think will happen if all three of you sign this contract. Sakura first.”

Sakura frowned and thought silently for a while. “Well, if you have all three of us sign it as your students, there might not be enough space for an heir later, because summoning contracts can usually only be signed a few times per generation. But you haven’t, uh, had or adopted an heir, so either you plan on letting your clan die or…”

Sasuke huffed an approximation of a startled laugh. “You want one of us to be your heir and the others to be your apprentices.”

Kakashi said nothing and looked to Naruto, who stared at him intently for a long moment before giving him an all too wary look. Kakashi nodded waved him on to speak.

“No,” Naruto said slowly, as if he could hardly believe what he was saying, “Kakashi wants to take Sasuke on as his apprentice, ‘cause he’s already the heir to a clan. But, uh, he can only have one apprentice ‘cause that’s how it works here. Suna, though, you can have like three apprentices I heard, but that’s cause they hardly have any shinobi and-!”

“Naruto,” Kakashi said, pulling him away from his digression. Really, the boy was much too much a perfect, disastrous mix of his parents. Ditsy but smart, kind but stubborn and ultimately both Minato and Kushina’s friends’ worst nightmare.

“Sorry, sorry,” Naruto said, “anyway. Sensei wants Sasuke to be his apprentice cause he’s already got a clan but me and Sakura-chan don’t and sometimes people get pissy when a summoning contract gets signed by multiple students ‘cause that one creepy snake guy let most of his students sign his summoning contract and now everyone thinks that anyone who does the same will end up like him. So Kakashi-sensei is gonna dodge that bullshit by adopting me and Sakura and only having one apprentice sign the contract.”

Kakashi leaned over and ruffled Naruto’s hair. “You shouldn’t act like such an idiot all the time, Naruto, you’re actually pretty smart when you’re not acting annoying.”

“I don’t act annoying!”

Kakashi ignored his protest. “Yes, Naruto’s right again. Sasuke, you’ll sign last, which will mark you as my apprentice. Sakura, you’ll sign first. You’ll be my heir. There are special circumstances that prevent me from making Naruto my heir, but I feel that you’ll make a better Hatake clan head than him anyway.”

Sakura’s jaw dropped. “Me? But- but I’m the first shinobi of my family!  And I can’t just leave my mom I love her and-!”

“Sakura,” Kakashi said, holding one hand out as a placating gesture, “Calm down. I’m not taking you away from your parents. Your parents will be adopted too, though they’ll be joining the Hatake clan as civilian members, when I formally adopt you. This, with the contract, is just for us, you understand?”

Sasuke grunted. “He’s adopting you through clan traditions. The village will be forced to sign off on his adoption after it’s done because clan laws are above civilian laws.”

“That’s right,” Kakashi said, thankful that somehow, one of his other students had been able to explain what was happening a little more thoroughly than he thought he needed to. “Paperwork comes later. This is to mark my intent to adopt you and Naruto into the Hatake clan by chakra.”

“Oh,” Sakura said, “okay.”

Sasuke’s head snapped around to stare at Kakashi in alarm before she was finished. “I thought Chakra adoption wasn’t done anymore.”

Kakashi shrugged. “It’s not, normally. The only other clans here in Konoha that need to do chakra adoptions are the Hyuuga and the Aburame. Hyuuga don’t do adoptions, and the Aburame don’t have many opportunities for obvious reasons. Hatake chakra is finnicky, though, so we’ll have to do that part later. Quit distracting me, I’m trying to educate you kids.”

Naruto mimed pulling a zipper over his lips. Sakura ducked her head with an apology. Sasuke huffed and crossed his arms.

Kakashi let the scroll fall sideways to the ground, where it promptly unraveled in exactly the dramatic manner he’d hoped it would. He couldn’t help but give his father’s signature a sad smile before he told his kids how to sign the scroll.

“But remember,” he said after, reluctant to give his kids any reason to not sign the contract, but needing them to understand the responsibility, “you’re going to be summoning a puppy. You’re going to be its prime caretaker for the rest of its life. If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”

He offered a kunai to Sakura then. She hesitated to take the kunai, and then hesitated to slice open her finger. But she steeled herself and signed her name in remarkably nice calligraphy for having done it with her blood via a finger. Then she went through the hand signs with the kind of precision and memory he expected from her, and a puppy appeared with a little cloud of smoke.

It was mostly a dull orange color, with a white belly and a dark brown muzzle. An Akita, Kakashi recognized. He was definitely going to weigh more than Sakura when he was fully grown. A good guard breed, though still very friendly and sweet. He seemed to be about eight weeks, maybe seven weeks old.

 “Oh my god,” she said, kneeling to coo at the puppy. “I love him.”

The little puppy woofed and nuzzled at her hands as she reached down to pet him, then hopped up into her arms, probably so she could snuggle him better. 

“Should I name him?” She asked.

“No,” Kakashi said, “he knows his name, and he’ll tell you it when he’s figured out how to communicate. Most dog summons can talk, like Pakkun.”

Sakura nodded solemnly. “I’ll take very good care of you, Puppy-kun.”

Kakashi flared his chakra just a little, and the puppy stopped his affection upon Sakura and looked at Kakashi with the most serious expression a puppy could conjure.

“I’m the leader of Pack Hatake,” he told the puppy as seriously as he could. He didn’t remember the words for this- he was just barely old enough to mold chakra when his father had done this for him. “I claim this pup, Sakura Hatake, as my heir. Treat her well.”

The puppy yipped and bowed his head. He understood fully and would guard as well as teach her how to be a good pack leader.

Kakashi turned to Naruto now.

Naruto was staring at Sakura with the clearest envious expression Kakashi had ever seen since he’d told Kushina that someone else had been at Ichiraku before her on its opening day.

“Your turn,” Kakashi told him, offering a clean kunai.

Naruto didn’t hesitate in taking it nor in cutting a little deeper into his finger than necessary. He signed his name carefully, and though his handwriting was nowhere as pretty as Sakura’s, it was still the neatest anyone had probably seen from him ever. Certainly it was the neatest Kakashi had seen from him.

As usual, he was also a little sloppy with his hand signs. Kakashi was going to beat that out of him as soon as he could. Another little cloud of smoke appeared then disappeared and in its place was a black and white puppy with scraggly fur.

Naruto and the puppy stared at each other for a moment. Then the puppy looked around, and, having apparently been satisfied with what she saw, put her paws on Naruto’s knees and barked exactly once.

Ah, Kakashi thought, she was a spitfire and Naruto was going to be wrapped around her dewclaws in no time. That, and she’d be running him ragged- regular Border Collies were smarter than any dog had any right to be, and on top of that, summons were smarter than regular dogs. Naruto could use a good tiring out.

“I’ll take super good care of you,” Naruto told the puppy. “I promise!”

“I know,” the puppy said, “I can smell it. You’re going to be a good packmate.”

Naruto’s head snapped around to look at Kakashi in alarm. It took all of his considerable willpower to not laugh at his poor startled student.

“Hello,” Kakashi said to the puppy. “I’m Kakashi, the pack leader of the Hatake pack. What’s your name?”

“I’m Hotaru,” she said. “I’m going to be able to breathe fire when I’m older. Mama said so.”

Kakashi nodded solemnly. “That’s an excellent skill for a dog to have. Please take care of my pup; he’s a ditz, but he’s smarter than he seems. Can you help him reach his potential?”

 “Of course,” Hotaru said, then licked Naruto’s cheek.

Finally, Kakashi held a third kunai out to Sasuke. He took it, and stared at it for a while before looking up at Kakashi with a conflicted expression, though he was clearly trying to hide it.

“The Uchiha have a summoning contract, with crows,” he said. “If I sign this one…?”

Kakashi shrugged. “The dog contract isn’t necessarily exclusive. You’ll just have to talk it out with your pack if you want to sign another. I’m not certain if the crow contract is exclusive or not, but it might be. You don’t have to sign this, Sasuke.”

It would totally mess up his plan if Sasuke didn’t sign, but that was what backup plans were for, and he had quite a lot of those.

Sasuke shook his head, cut his finger and signed. He, like Sakura, flashed through the signs perfectly, though unlike Sakura, he had used his Sharingan to copy the signs. A cloud of smoke appeared and when it dissipated, a puppy smaller than Kakashi had expected was sitting at his feet.

It took him a moment to pinpoint her breed, but after looking a little more intently at her ears, he figured she was a Papillion. An active breed, but a very small one. And, Kakashi realized, sniffing the air, she had the scent of healing chakra, which would be very useful for a frontline fighter like Sasuke was going to be.

Sasuke knelt and held his hand out to the puppy. She sniffed it, then put her paw in his palm delicately. Kakashi was pleased to see Sasuke fighting a smile.

“Hello, pup,” Kakashi said once more, “I’m Kakashi, pack leader of the Hatake pack. This is my apprentice, Sasuke Uchiha. Treat him well.”

The puppy took her paw from Sasuke’s hand and bowed gracefully, tucking one foot under her chest and inclining her head. Kakashi grinned under his mask. She was going to be an absolute diva and his broody student would deserve every second of it. Hell, it might even be good for him.

Kakashi clapped his hands. “Okay, that’s settled, then. I’ll start the paperwork in the morning while you three are getting to know your pack. Day after tomorrow, though, we’re going to start training a little more seriously, so get a good night’s sleep, puppies!”

.

 True to his word, he spent all of the next day pushing paperwork through offices and listening to old men argue about how he was destroying his clan’s name by adopting, to which he argued back that blood didn’t matter to the Hatake clan, just Chakra. Which then led to hours of arguments over the ethics and practicality of chakra adoption, which was a very old practice, admittedly, but safe enough that even Tsunade hadn’t ever said a word against it when she was still around.

In the end, his case went to the clan council, who argued about it long enough that the Hokage decided to handle it personally. After a quick interrogation of his intentions, he signed off on the paperwork and wished him good luck.

By the time everything was settled, it was approaching eleven at night and Kakashi was exhausted, but he wanted to check in on his students and their puppies just once before he went to bed. He just wanted to make sure that everyone was getting along and he hadn’t given himself a huge headache for nothing.

He went to Sasuke’s first, figuring that if any of his students had problems with their pups, it would be him.

It was easy to slip into the Uchiha compound with a wave at the ANBU stationed in a nearby tree, and easier to slip into Sasuke’s bedroom. Another thing to beat out of his students later, he supposed, though he didn’t find Sasuke in his bed.

What he found, though, was surprising. Sasuke was crashed on the floor of his kitchen, leaning against the refrigerator with several scrolls and books scattered around him. Kakashi leaned over to see what one of the books was about, and to his genuine shock, it was a book of names. Granted, it looked like the book was full of Uchiha obituaries, but still. Sasuke had been trying to figure out his dog’s name.

And, perhaps not as surprising, the puppy was curled on Sasuke’s neck, sitting inside of the huge collar on his shirt, sleeping peacefully. Sasuke’s arms were crossed, but he had one hand that was more or less upright to keep the puppy from slipping down into his shirt.

The puppy snuffled a bit and picked her head up. She looked at him and licked her nose sleepily, before barking quietly at him. His dog-speak was rusty, because all of his dogs were chatterboxes except Bisuke and Bull, who both spoke an odd dialect according to Pakkun, but he still understood enough to hear the “Thank you,” and the “he’ll be fine,” in her little bark.

He gave her an awkward snuffle-snort, a “you’re welcome,” and “I’m glad.”

She drifted back to sleep, and Kakashi left Sasuke’s house in good spirits and much more hopeful than he ever expected to be about this plan.

Next stop was Naruto’s apartment, where he greeted another ANBU in a nearby tree before perching silently on the kitchen windowsill, which was the easiest of the windowsills to perch on. The bedroom window looked greased, which was a good and simple boobytrap, through easy to get past if you had the right know-how.

He had to deduct points, though, when he discovered that the window was unlocked and opened nice and quietly. These kids had such bad habits…

Naruto was snoring in his bedroom, and the door was cracked enough for Kakashi to peek in, which he did. His puppy was sleeping in his chest, somehow unbothered by the loud, lung-rattling snores that Naruto was emitting, and rising up and down as he breathed.

One of her ears twitched and she turned her head to face him. She started blinking, and Kakashi made a note to teach his kids Morse code.

HI ALPHA, her eyes said, N IS GREAT. LOVE. HAPPY. COMFY. THANK U.

He blinked in return, NOT ALPHA. PACK LEADER. HAPPY. GOOD. WELCOME.

She snuffled against Naruto’s chin, and he, in his sleep, reached up to scratch her ear. Kakashi smiled behind his mask and left them to sleep.  

Sakura’s place was last, and somehow the most defended. Her window had a paralyzing seal on both the inside and outside, and he was fairly certain he could see two or three, maybe four more etched into her windowsill at various points. The windowsill was also greased, and, to Kakashi’s delight, he saw an alarm trap that was so well hidden he almost missed it.

It was a little textbook, which wasn’t exactly a good thing, but at least she was attempting to protect her space. The rest of the house wasn’t booby trapped at all, but that was to be expected. Her family was a civilian clan, after all.

So, he knocked on the front door. Civilians found it rude when shinobi slipped in and out of their houses, and after all, he had still yet to meet Sakura’s parents. He was greeted by Sakura’s father, who invited him in for tea. He accepted. The boys were orphans, which Kakashi understood intimately, but Sakura had family. Ones family were an important influence in ones life and Kakashi wanted to see what kind of influences he was dealing with, with Sakura.

As it turns out, quite a lot. Sakura’s father is quite overbearing and talks down to Kakashi about how he needs to protect his little girl until she’s old enough to marry and then “I’ll make sure she finds a good man to take care of her,” and then threatened to report him to the Hokage for negligence if her little baby girl got a single scar during her time with him.

It took not quite all of Kakashi’s willpower to keep from chewing this man out, but it still took him some effort. Sakura was a shinobi now and it seemed that her father hadn’t gotten the memo. It was a little odd, in truth, that it was her father and not her mother that was like this. From what Kakashi’s seen with his friends’ teams, it’s nearly always the mother.

He nodded and gave him several very fake eye smiles and nearly sighed in relief when Sakura’s mother entered the kitchen and started whisper-yelling at her husband about “outdated nonsense” and how he was “giving my beautiful and strong daughter a fucking complex” and how “if you don’t get with the present I’m going to divorce you,” because she was “absofuckingloutely sick of you sabotaging Sakura’s career!” and so on. Based on Sakura’s father’s expression, he’d heard this before and didn’t care. Frankly, it was a wonder the woman married him in the first place.

Kakashi couldn’t make this shit up if he tried. Still, he loved a good bit of drama and finally dropped the bomb of why he was really here.

“Well, I suppose I ought to tell you that the real reason I came by was to inform you that I’ve adopted Sakura-chan as the heir to the Hatake clan. The Hokage’s already signed off and Sakura-chan’s already adopted by my clan laws. I just wanted to let you know in person and to give you a chance to be adopted as well, as civilian members.”

Sakura’s father’s face went redder than a cherry and he began spluttering about how improper that was, though Kakashi wasn’t listening to him. No, he was watching Sakura’s mother’s emotional journey as she slowly began to realize that her daughter had just been adopted by a minor but very powerful clan and was therefore set for life in regard to, well, just about everything.

“Hatake-san,” she said slowly but loud enough to be heard over her husband’s protests, “I am honored by your offer and it would be foolish of me to decline. However, before I accept, I must ask: what is your clan’s opinion on divorce?”

“Well,” Kakashi said delicately, “My clan believes that one generally mates for life, but also that one’s puppies- children, my apologies- are more important than a mate.”

Sakura’s mother nodded then delicately placed her hand in the air for him to take. “Then, Hatake-sama, I accept your offer of adoption and would like to inform my clan head that my husband has inhibited my daughter’s growth as a shinobi and that I should like to be rid of him.”

“It will be done,” Kakashi said gravely. “If you wouldn’t mind packing some necessities, I will be able to provide to you a new residence in the Hatake clan home. It’s been a while since I’ve lived there, but there’s seals to preserve it, so it shouldn’t be too dusty. I’ll wake Sakura.”

He stood from the table and left Sakura’s mother, whose name he needed to learn he supposed, and went upstairs to rouse Sakura and her puppy from their sleep.

When he opened her door, however, she and her puppy were very much awake and she seemed quite upset.

“Kakashi-sensei,” she said, in a low, would-be dangerous tone, “What did you just do? I nearly had them happy again! Dad was working on being better for mom!”

“Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said.

She scowled, and her eyes became just shiny enough that Kakashi was beginning to worry she’d cry on him. He had no idea how to comfort crying people and he wasn’t looking forward to having screwed this up already.

“I-” she said, then stopped. Her confrontational stance drooped into a resigned one. “No, you’re right. I was listening, and he was never going to change, was he? I can’t believe I was so stupid as to believe…”

“No,” Kakashi said, cutting her off before she could say stupid. “It’s perfectly reasonable to believe a loved one when they say they’re going to change. Some do. Some don’t. But Sakura-chan…”

How does he tell her that, of his three students, he sees the most potential in her? She could be great. Her chakra control could make her a dangerous Genjutsu master like the Uchiha were once known for, her build could make her a formidable taijutsu expert to rival Gai, her mind could nearly rival a Nara’s. All doors were open for her: she just had to choose one.

He settled on this: “I chose you as my heir for a real reason. Please, trust me when I say that you have more potential than your father was letting you see in yourself.”

She wiped away a few tears and picked up her puppy. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Kakashi nodded and hoped that he’d solved whatever problem she was having. “Good. Now, pack up what you want to take with you. Are you getting along with your puppy?”

He hopes the lighter topic will cheer her up more, and nearly fist pumps the air when it works and she slowly gains momentum in her chatter about how much she loves her dog and how she’d figured out his name- Taiki- and that she wanted to be strong enough, physically, to match him but also she thought that having a big, strong guard dog would make her an excellent medic because she wouldn’t really need a team and…

She continued to talk as she zipped up her pale pink duffle bag and left her room and passed her father without looking at him. It made Kakashi’s vindictive little heart sing with joy to see her finally standing up for herself.

Later that night, after he has Sakura and Taiki settled in his old room and her mother, whose name is Tsubaki, he finally learned, settled in his father’s old room, he laughs quietly with Pakkun and the rest of his pack, sprawled on the floor of the living room. Nothing about his night had been expected, and somehow, he really didn’t mind.

The plan was coming along better than he could have ever expected.


	2. Sakura

Sakura didn’t want to forgive Kakashi for a little bit. Not even after she admitted that her dad was never going to get better. She wanted to hate him for breaking up her family and ruining all her hard work. She had been so sure she’d found just the right balance of traditional and demure young lady and strong shinobi woman to satisfy both of her parents. Of course, she’d learned during Kakashi’s new training regime that she’d been so very wrong.

 She’d sulked about it for a while. Nearly three weeks, in fact, during which Kakashi kept putting off the chakra adoption thing he’d talked about while driving them harder and harder during training. He kept telling her it was still a little too dangerous, but never explained what that meant. It annoyed her, but…

Kakashi pushed her and her team and their dogs to exhaustion. It felt totally pointless for a while, and even humiliating sometimes when she couldn’t keep up with the boys. Every time she failed, she could hear her father’s voice in her head, telling her that this is why all this ninja nonsense is better left to men and that she should just give up.

“Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said after she completely failed to stand on water for even a few minutes at a time, when the boys were already sparring, “It takes time to build your reserves. Sasuke only has as much as he does because he’s been practicing a C-rank jutsu since he was seven.”

“What about Naruto?” Sakura asked bitterly. “What’s his excuse for having so much chakra?”

“Well,” Kakashi said, “first of all, the Shadow Clone jutsu is forbidden jutsu because it uses so much chakra, and he uses it pretty much daily. Second, he just has naturally high chakra reserves for reasons I’m legally not allowed to tell you.”

Sakura side-eyed him for a moment and petted Taiki slowly. “Not allowed to, legally?”

Kakashi nodded, then blinked at her. Actually, she was sure he was trying to wink, but since he always had one eye covered it just looked like he was blinking. Sakura thought he looked pretty stupid but thought it would be rude to say anything.

“It’s still not fair,” she said, though she filed that bit away to research later, “I’m too weak to keep up with them.”

Kakashi nodded. “Yes, you are.”

She glared at him. “You don’t have to agree with me!”

“It’s true, though,” Kakashi said. “You are too weak to keep up with them. For now. Tell me, what do you do when we’re not training or running D-ranks?”

Sakura frowned. “I read. Sometimes I run errands or go hang out with Ino.”

“Do you train on your own?”

She said nothing. She didn’t train on her own. Kakashi was helping them train with their puppies in the morning, then he’d supervise a D-rank, then in the afternoon he’d run team training and spars, and sometimes they’d take another D-rank. She only had so much free time, didn’t she? She needed to relax some time, didn’t she?

But she didn’t relax in her free time. She read, but it was mostly medical texts and jutsu theory. She’d run errands, but mostly to pick up weapons from the sharpener or to browse the local shinobi shops. She’d hang out with Ino, but that was to taunt her and see how she was measuring against her rival. None of that was relaxing. It was just unproductive.

“Here,” Kakashi said, “let me show you something.”

Sakura picked up Taiki and followed him to the edge of the training field. They both sat down, and he held out his hand to her. She took it.

“Close your eyes,” Kakashi said. She did. “Feel your chakra. Feel Taiki’s chakra. Feel mine. Describe what you feel.”

She concentrated for a long moment. “My chakra feels light, but like it shouldn’t be. Like a dry riverbed. Taiki’s chakra is heavy, but comfortable. Like a good blanket for winter. Your chakra is bright and sharp but not to me? Like I’m looking at the sun through really dark sunglasses.”

“Excellent,” Kakashi said. “Now, what if I told you that when I made genin, my chakra only felt like looking at a dying candle?”

Sakura opened her eyes and gave him her very best disbelieving expression.

He nodded. “It’s true. Of course, I was made genin really young, so that’s part of it. But even when I was a chuunin, when I was about your age, I only had about a good bonfire’s worth of chakra. Do you know why I have so much now?”

She scowled and looked at Taiki as an excuse to not look at him. “You trained.”

“Yes.” He stood and held his hand out to her. “Come on, Sakura, let’s try standing on the water again. This time, hold on until I tell you to stop, okay? Trust me.”

That had been just days ago. She already felt like her chakra had doubled, which would have sent her into a quiet internal tantrum before his talk with her. Now it just fueled her; she  _had_  been weak, but now she was getting to not be, and soon she wouldn’t be weak at all.

Her father was wrong. She could do this.

 .

During dinner a week after Kakashi’s talk with her, she was reading a scroll he’d given her on sealing while he read his dirty books and Naruto struggled through a moderately difficult chakra theory book with help from her mom.

Her dad hated when she read at the table. He insisted it was unladylike and that she especially shouldn’t read such tough topics as the ones she liked because it would put off suitors.

Sakura peeked over the edge of her scroll for just a minute. Naruto’s face was screwed up in concentration. Her mom looked exasperated and a little righteously angry, but also wary still of Naruto for whatever reason adults tended to be wary of him for. Kakashi’s plate was clean, but he was still sitting peacefully at the table while Sakura and her mom kept eating instead of wandering off to do his own thing.

She wanted to hate this. Everyone being distracted at the table and reading went against everything she knew about manners. This whole scene should make her angry. It didn’t.

“Kakashi-nii-san,” Sakura said, hoping that his explanation would distract her from the misery that wanted to take over, “what, exactly, does chakra-adoption entail? I haven’t been able to find much about it in the library.”

“Ah.” Kakashi shut his book and put it away. “I was waiting for you to ask.”

Her mom snapped to attention at that, and Naruto took advantage of her distraction to take a break from his reading, judging by his relieved lunge for more food.

“Chakra adoption is an old practice,” Kakashi began. “Any clan that would allow adoption did it as a way to mark who was theirs, because as you know, familial chakra all feels similar. It fell out of favor around the time the hidden villages were beginning to form. It was obsolete by the time the hidden villages were running smoothly, because shinobi weren’t fighting other families, but other villages, and it was easier to mark everyone by sight instead of by chakra. Also, because nobody could agree what clan’s chakra would be the baseline for which village.”

Sakura nodded. That made sense. Everyone knew that the clans were fiercely proud and protective of their heritages.

Kakashi continued. “Of course, some clans never stopped the tradition. Out clan, the Hatake, is one of those clans. Others include the Aburame clan, a few clans in Hidden Rock, and one clan in Hidden Cloud. There’s other clans that, if they did adoptions, would need to do a chakra adoption, like the Hyuuga. But they don’t because… Well, back to my point: there’s a reason some clans never lost the tradition. The Aburame need to do chakra adoptions if they want to give someone a hive of their own, because the Aburame bugs won’t integrate with a chakra system other than an Aburame’s.”

“So what’s special about the Hatake that needs chakra adoptions to happen?” Naruto asked through a mouthful of rice.

Kakashi eye-smiled. “Well, you see, there’s a reason my clan summons dogs. We’re a sister clan to the Inuzuka. But-!”

“Wait!” Naruto shouted, having swallowed his rice, “does that mean Kiba’s gonna be my cousin!?”

“No, Naruto,” Kakashi said, “Let me finish.”

“…Sorry.”

Kakashi shook his head. “Anyway. The Inuzuka clan is a sister clan to the Hatake clan. Once upon a time, long before the hidden villages were even conceived as an idea, we were one clan. The name of this clan has been lost to time, but what we know is that at some point there was a split: one branch of the family kept the signature white chakra of our clan, and the other kept the more animalistic features our clan was known for. Not all, but the more obvious ones.”

Sakura frowned. “But the Inuzuka use dogs, too, but they don’t summon them. Was that another thing that split the old clan?”

Kakashi shook his head. “No. The first recorded Inuzuka told the first recorded Hatake to keep the scroll, because she’d convinced her dog to give birth in this world instead of the summoning world, which is why all Inuzuka dogs look similar: they’re all descended from the same dog.”

“Why didn’t they help your family when your clan started dying?” Naruto demanded. “If you’re sister clans, doesn’t it make sense that they’d help us?”

Kakashi snorted. “Well, normally, yes. But Kiba’s grandmother was, to put it lightly, a tyrant. People used to hate the Inuzuka clan because of her, and everyone was glad to see Tsume take over.”

“Oh,” Naruto said.

“Anyway. The white chakra of our clan is the only kind of chakra that can summon the oldest and wisest dog of the summon’s world. We don’t tend to call on her often, because she’s not a fighting dog. We only call on her to give advice when we really, really need it, and we can only do so once a year.”

“Why?” Sakura asked.

Kakashi shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that she can only be summoned once a year. I’m sure my father knew, but he… passed away before he could tell me.”

Sakura looked down at the table, past the scroll she was still holding. She might have accepted that her father was terrible, but if died today, she’d still be heartbroken. She couldn’t imagine having lost him as a child.

“Anyway,” Kakashi continued, “I think you’ve improved enough that the white chakra won’t kill you. That’s why you had to wait- you needed to have a decent pool of chakra because otherwise the white chakra would have burned you from the inside out. We can do it tomorrow night, if you like.”

“Yes!” Sakura yelped, slamming her hands on the table and kneeling up from crossed legs in a flash, “Yes! Please!”

If anyone other than Kakashi asked why she was so eager to be a Hatake, she’d toss her hair over her shoulder and say something about getting a leg up over Ino. If Kakashi asked, he’d get the truth: she wanted to change some things in the village, and she couldn’t do that as a clanless nobody. She could, however, make plenty of changes as the heir to a very honorable and loyal clan.

Taiki yipped next to her, sounding almost more excited than she was. She was still learning the Hatake summons’ dog speak, but she caught something about “grandma.”

Kakashi nodded. “Tomorrow it is, then. Better get a good night’s sleep, kids. You’ll need it.”

.

 Naruto, the next morning, begged and pleaded Sasuke to attend. Sasuke, after quite a few denials that he’d never admit were reluctant, agreed.

Kakashi went easy on them that day, with just some basic stretches and light sparring. He wouldn’t explain why, but Sakura figured that the chakra adoption ceremony was going to be very rough on their bodies or their chakra.

Instead of regular training, he had Sasuke lecture them on clan politics because somehow a twelve year old was more in tune with current clan drama than a twenty five year old man.

“I’m twenty seven!” he protested.

Sakura ignored him and listened to Sasuke’s concise lecture on clan politics because she actually did need to know this and anyway she was just teasing him. Everyone knew he was a shut in who had no plans to keep his clan alive.

“In summary,” Sasuke said, crossing his arms, “The Inuzuka and the Aburame benefit from each other’s clan techniques. The Hyuugas are split into two families: main and branch. Main family thinks they’re superior and Branch hates them for it. The Yamanaka, Nara, and Akamichi have been tied to each other since before recorded history. Yamanaka and Aburame have a strained relationship because Aburame bugs eat Yamanaka flowers. I’m the last Uchiha. You two and Kakashi are the last Hatake. Any questions? Too bad; do your own research.”

He sat down and glared at Kakashi. His puppy used her whole body to push a glass of water towards him, which he took and sipped at.

Kakashi placed his head in his hands. “Never mind. I don’t know why I bothered. Sakura, if you have questions, ask him. Sasuke, if she has questions, answer her.”

Naruto leaned on Sakura’s arm. “You can ask me, too. I know a lot of stuff I’m probably not supposed to.”

“Thanks,” Sakura said.

So, instead of training or continuing their education as shinobi at all, the three of them lazed about the Hatake clan home, playing with their puppies and Kakashi’s pack until dinner. Sakura’s mom had made her favorite and bought a few bowls of ramen from Ichiraku’s for Naruto.  

Sakura was too excited to eat all of her dinner, though she did eat most of it. She forced down the last bits that would be unsafe for Taiki to eat and then gave him the rest. Naruto scarfed down all of his ramen in record time and even Sasuke finished quicker than usual.

Her mother sighed. “Oh, alright. Kakashi-dono, I think the kids are as ready as they’re going to be. Should I prepare anything for afterwards?”

“A plate of something filling but gentle on the stomach, please,” he told her. Then he motioned towards the door and said, “Okay, kids, to the temple.”

The temple was a small, circular building made of stone that had cracked some over time. Moss had grown around and inside, as had some ivy. He’d had Sakura help him tidy it up but had insisted that they leave the plants as they were. Sakura hadn’t argued. It was a beautiful place, and she’d found herself drawn to it again and again. She liked to read on the steps outside.

Kakashi sat the three of them down in front of the small shrine and said, “There’s one last thing I need to tell you, before we start.”

“Kakashi-sensei, come on!” Naruto protested.

Kakashi shook his head. “No, this is important, Naruto, especially for you. Please listen carefully, okay? And try not to be upset if it happens.”

“…If what happens, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asked, a pit of dread forming in her belly.

He sighed. “The thing is… The Hatake white chakra will take over your chakra system. Over the next three days, you’ll be pretty much unable to use any chakra while your system recalibrates, essentially. However, it’s not stronger than other kinds of chakra, and if it turns out that either of you have a different kind of chakra than the regular, then it’s won’t take.”

Sakura watched as Naruto’s eyes widened. “Kakashi-sensei, does… does my, uh… the thing count as a different kind of chakra?”

She had no idea what that meant, but Kakashi apparently did. He shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you to not be upset if the white chakra doesn’t take. Okay?”

Naruto was silent for a moment, then said, “Okay. I won’t be upset. I mean, I’ll be upset, but I won’t take it out on you or Sakura-chan! Is that okay?”

Kakashi sighed a little, possibly in relief, and said, “yes, that’s perfect.”

Sakura knew that Naruto would never let a little disappointment sour his relationship with any of them. He was just too sunny and sweet. She stopped a minute and realized she’d never called Naruto ‘sweet’ before, though it was absolutely true. When had she decided he was sweet?

Sakura remembered something. “You said it’d burn me from the inside out. How can it do that if…?”

Kakashi nodded. “Just because it can’t overwhelm other chakra types doesn’t mean it won’t burn your pathways if I gave you more than you could handle, and when we first started training, the minimum you could receive was nearly three times what you could handle.”

That made sense, she supposed.

“Sakura,” Kakashi said, holding a hand out to her, “When you’re ready, take my hand.”

She took a deep breath and smoothed down her dress. He waited patiently, hand still outstretched. She ran her hands through her hair, then stopped when she realized she was just stalling because she was anxious about not knowing what was coming.

Sakura took his hand.

.

She opened her eyes and shouted when she saw that both of her teammates and Kakashi were hovering over her, staring at her worriedly.

Or, she tried to shout. What came out of her mouth was a decidedly unladylike and disconcertingly dog-like yelp. She tried to ask what was happening, but nothing more than a growl emerged.

“Ah,” Kakashi said, “That’s the other side effect the scroll mentioned, though I didn’t anticipate the voice thing. Your incisors should also grow a little and your hair might get paler, though the silver hair is a blood Hatake thing, so don’t worry about that.”

Sakura cleared her throat and very carefully forced her voice box to work for her. “It worked?”

“Yes,” Kakashi said. “Do you remember that exercise I showed you?”

She nodded and closed her eyes. The dried up riverbed from before had grown into a wide but shallow river, and there was something different. It took her a moment, but she realized that it felt like the water was sparkling.

She opened her eyes and grinned at Kakashi.

He nodded. “You’ll feel a little odd for the next three days, like I said, but you’ll be right as rain after. Naruto, remember what I said, okay? Take my hand when you’re ready.”

In an uncharacteristic move, Naruto hesitated, then, both hands on his puppy, “it’s okay if I don’t get the white chakra, right? I can keep Hotaru, right?”

Kakashi nodded. “Yes, of course. The only thing that will change is that you won’t be able to help with summoning the Old Dog. Or be legally adopted by Konoha laws, unfortunately.”

Naruto nodded and took his hand.

They all waited a long moment, nothing happened. Naruto put on that bright smile of his that Sakura had recently realized was very, very fake.

“That’s okay, Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto said, his voice unbreaking, “Thanks for trying.”

“I’m sorry, Naruto,” Kakashi said. “I consider all three of you my pups, whether or not you’re legally mine. Nothing will change that.”

Sakura was relieved, and immediately upon recognizing that, she felt horribly guilty. Naruto had just had one of his dreams ripped directly from his hands, and she was relieved? She resolved to ignore that and just try to make him feel better, instead.

“I will buy you Ichiraku,” Sakura said slowly, taking her time to make sure she actually formed syllables and not dog noises, “And when I’m clan head I will be the one to submit you as a nomination for Hokage.”

Sakura nearly missed it, but the white chakra running through her system had clearly already started to change her, so she totally heard the ever-stoic and seemingly emotionless Sasuke Uchiha mutter, “Not if I do first.”

She flashed him a toothy grin with a dare in her eyes. He narrowed his eyes at her and nodded his agreement. Whoever was first won, and they’d decide what, exactly, they’d win later. 

.

It was Sakura's idea to move Naruto into the Hatake clan house. She'd told Kakashi that they had plenty of room for him and that his apartment was in the worst location she could possibly imagine living in and that he was terrible at taking care of himself and besides, wouldn't it be easier to make sure he got to training on time if you could just walk into the other room to wake him up?

Plus, she wanted him to feel more involved in Hatake stuff after his horrible disappointment with the chakra adoption thing.

Kakashi had agreed. Then he'd said, "Well, you know, that goes for Sasuke, too, doesn't it?"

And that's how both of her boys- and when did she start calling them her boys?- moved into the rooms next door to hers. Kakashi had finally moved into a room instead of sleeping in the living room. It was almost as though Kakashi had just adopted all of them in one go, regardless of petty things like laws and tradition. It was peaceful, even with Sasuke and Naruto fighting over stupid things every chance they got. 

Of course it couldn't last. 

Sakura was the only one present when the messenger hawk appeared on the windowsill. It tilted its head at her then hopped inside.  The scroll it was holding was labelled with Kakashi's name, so she called for him. 

He poked his head into the room and then visibly slumped when he saw the bird. 

"Damn," he said, "I was hoping I'd get away without a fuss."

"Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked. "Where are you going?"

He shook his head. "Someone called a clan council meeting. I'll take care of it. I still have some pull, and I can always count on Tsume to back me up. And she can count on Shibi for help. We'll figure it out, okay? See if you can get the boys to have a snack before they spar again. They're in the dojo."

"No," Sakura said, surprising herself. "I want to come with you."

That had been one thing Sasuke had told her. As heir to a clan, she could come along and nobody would complain. Sasuke had needed to sit in on a couple of council meetings since he'd become a genin and he'd told her that he'd hated every one of them, but also that they were very useful and she should get used to going as soon as possible.

Kakashi paused. "Are you sure? They're probably going to say some cruel things about me taking you on as my heir."

Sakura was already putting on her sandals. "I don't care. I should know what's happening if it involves our clan. I'm the heir, right? I should know these things as soon as possible, just in case."

She hated to think of Kakashi dying, but they were shinobi and death was a fact of life in their profession. One day, he'd be gone. If he was lucky he'd get to retire first, but that was a rarity. No, it was better for her to learn as much as she could, as soon as she could, just in case.

"Okay," Kakashi said, scooping her up with one arm and holding her like a sack of potatoes and scruffing Taiki to gently shove into his vest. 

She blinked, and then they were standing in a room she'd never been in before, and most of the clan heads were staring at them with varied exasperated expressions. She sighed and hung her head. She should have known he'd do something goofy to throw them off. 

"Sensei," Sakura said, "Please put me down and give me my partner."

Kakashi set her down and handed Taiki down to her. She set him down and he sat quietly next to her feet, his tongue lolling out happily. 

"I was called?" Kakashi asked. 

"Yes," The Hokage said from his seat at the far end of the table. "A few clans have concerns about you and your team."

Kakashi sat in the only open chair, and Sakura stood behind him, quietly looking around while she listened. Shikamaru was there with his dad, as was Ino and Choji. Kiba's sister was behind their mom, and Shino stood silently behind his father. None of the other clan heirs were present. 

"What concerns are those?" Kakashi asked. Sakura recognized his tone as the one he used when Naruto or Sasuke was about to do something stupid and he was trying to warn them not to do it without sounding like he cared too much. 

"Well," the Hokage said, "You've adopted one member of your team, attempted to adopt the other, and took on the third as your heir. Some clans feel as though you're not treating your team fairly, and others believe that you might not be a very good teacher."

"Well," Kakashi drawled, "I can certainly say that I treat all of my students equally. My clan only has one special technique, and that's summoning dogs. All three of my genin have signed the contract. Sakura signed as my heir, Naruto signed as an adoptee, and Sasuke signed as an apprentice. Unfortunately, Naruto's chakra rejected the white chakra, so he isn't eligible for full clan status."

"Yes," said a man that Sakura didn't know, "that is what we are concerned about."

"Ah, Danzo-sama," Kakashi said, "Is it you that doesn't like that I let Naruto sign the dog contract? Or are you the one who thinks I'm favoring Sakura and Naruto over Sasuke?"

Danzo, Sakura notes, does not like that Kakashi speaks so plainly. He reeks of disdain, and she had only started to learn what emotions smelled like yesterday.

"I don't care what you do with Uzumaki," Danzo said, "But yes, as you put it, I am the one who thinks that you are not giving the only other Sharingan user in the village the training that he needs."

"Ah, there it is." Kakashi leaned back in his chair and tilted his head to look at Sakura. "Sakura-chan, please tell them our daily routine."

Sakura was startled, but obeyed. "All three of us wake up at seven and do our stretches. Kakashi-sensei has us do different kinds meant to round out what we're weak at. Then we go to the dojo and Kakashi-sensei helps us work with our puppies. Before lunch, we tend to do a simple D-rank, and then after that we eat and then we spar for a while."

She takes a breath and continues, "Sometimes we do another D-rank. After dinner, he takes one of us out to the dojo for one on one training. I get Monday and Thursday, Naruto gets Tuesday and Friday, and Sasuke gets Wednesday and Saturday. We get Sundays off, though we're still expected to do our stretches and eat proper meals."

"Thank you, Sakura," the Hokage said. "I think it's clear that Hatake-san is, in fact, an excellent teacher and very fair in his treatment of his students. Any other concerns?"

Hiashi Hyuuga said, "I am concerned about the state of a certain weapon in your care, Hatake-san. I have long felt that it has not been properly utilized and your recent actions cause me to worry further. It is a weapon for a reason."

Sakura felt the room go cold and the smell of ozone crept into her nose. It reminded her of Kakashi's fight with Zabuza, and wondered if Kakashi was going to attack him over whatever it is that he was saying underneath his actual words. 

"I should think, Hyuuga-san," Kakashi said, slowly and softly like she'd never heard from him before, "That you should maybe rethink your definition of a weapon. I should also think that you should maybe consider not thinking of what we speak of as a weapon but rather as what it actually is, a container."

Sakura had no idea what was going on, and looked to Shikamaru, hoping he did. He met her eyes and gave a subtle shake of his head. She'd talk to him later, to see if they couldn't piece together what the adults were talking about. She knew she shouldn't, that it was probably a secret for a reason, but Kakashi had been encouraging her curiosity recently, and now that she could finally scratch that itch she couldn't bear not to. 

"I think what Hatake-san is trying to say, Hyuuga-san," the Hokage said with a sigh, "is that the state of what you speak of is none of your business as it now pertains solely to Hatake-san and I. Let me worry about how it is taken care of."

"Of course, Hokage-sama," Hiashi said, bowing his head. Sakura could smell disdain from him, too. 

"I, for one," Tsume Inuzuka said with a wide grin that showed off her sharpest teeth, "Think it's excellent that Hatake-san has decided not to let his clan die after all. I especially applaud your choice of heir."

The cold eased back into lazy warmth. "Thank you, Inuzuka-san. I'm rather pleased with her, myself. May we speak after this meeting is over?"

"Of course, Hatake-san," Tsume said, her grin somehow widening. "It would be my pleasure."

"Now, on to the regular items of the agenda," the Hokage said, picking up some papers and shuffling them around for a moment before continuing, "Item one...."

The meeting lasted about forty five minutes after that, and only thanks to Kakashi's brutal training was she able to stand still without fidgeting or her legs getting tired. Sakura continued to listen to everything, and absorbed it easily, as she always did with information. She did have to ignore how interested she was about whatever Kakashi wanted to talk to Kiba's mom about, though. 

Finally, it was over, and she eagerly trotted after Kakashi, holding Taiki in her arms so she could move faster because he was still small and walked slower than her. She couldn't wait for him to get big, and she kind of hoped he'd get big enough that she could ride him like a horse. That would be so cool. 

"Inuzuka-san," Kakashi began as soon as they were outside.

"Tsume, please."

"Tsume-san, then. I have a request to ask of you. Please do not feel obligated to say yes, but I feel like you'll like this idea."

"Oh?" She said, leaning toward him. 

Kakashi nodded. "As you know, I've taken Sakura as my heir. I thought you might be interested in teaching her a few things about running a clan that I cannot, as it has only been me for so long."

"I would be very interested," Tsume said. "But that's not all, is it? I can smell your hesitation, Kakashi-kun."

Kakashi dipped his head. "Yes, I would also like to ask if you would mind if my apprentice studied under your daughter at the animal clinic."

"Your apprentice," Tsume said slowly, "As in, the Uchiha? The last Uchiha?"

"Yes."

She hummed, then said, "Nobody's going to like the last Uchiha becoming a medic. That goes against just about everything his clan ever stood for."

Kakashi shrugged. "Yes, it does. But my cute little student needs his horizons broadened, and learning how to heal might be better off for him in the long run than trying to fill the shoes of people he hasn't seen since he was seven."

"And maybe," Tsume adds dryly, "You might be able to help him avoid being seen as a revival of all of the bad aspects of the Uchiha clan and instead make him be seen as all of the good aspects."

Kakashi smiled but said nothing. 

"Mom, I don't mind teaching him," Hana said from her mother's side. "Plus, it'll drive Kiba nuts if this Uchiha kid is at the clinic all the time. You remember how much he ranted about Sasuke driving him crazy in the academy."

"Mmm, yes, that's true," Tsume said. "Very well. Your apprentice can shadow Hana at the clinic. If he makes himself a nuisance we'll kick him out, but..."

Kakashi nodded, apparently satisfied. Sakura wondered if Sasuke even knew what Kakashi had been planning for him. 


	3. Naruto

Naruto hated to admit it, but he was wildly jealous of Sasuke. 

Not because he was learning to be a medic, really. Naruto knew he didn't have the chakra control for that, and that he probably never would. Not to mention he had no idea how the kyuubi's chakra would interact with regular chakra in regular people. That would probably be dangerous. He didn't want to find out, so no, he wasn't jealous that Sasuke was learning to be a medic.

Naruto was jealous that Sasuke was getting specialized training at all. That meant the bastard had another fucking leg up on him. As if he needed any more boosts. 

He only told this to Hotaru, and only long after Kakashi had dismissed them for the day. 

"That's stupid," his puppy said flatly. "Kakashi-sensei definitely has stuff planned for you and Sakura-chan. Just 'cause he found a way to get Sasuke's special training set up before yours doesn't mean he doen't have anything planned, dummy."

Naruto liked that about Hotaru. She never told him that he was stupid, but she told him when his thoughts or actions were stupid. She always called him a dummy instead. Naruto wasn't sure why, but it felt so much nicer to be called a dummy instead of just stupid. 

"You really think so?" he asked her. He didn't doubt her, but he wanted the extra affirmation that he knew she'd give him if he asked.

She snorted and tossed the fur around her neck that was slowly growing into a silky and elegant ruff. "I know so."

And so Naruto resolved to not worry about it. So what if Sasuke had to leave team training for an hour in the afternoons? That was fine. You didn't need a full team to do D-ranks anyway, so Naruto only had to split the pay with Sakura, which meant he could save so much more money. 

Not to mention, Kakashi had him and Sakura and their dogs doing some really tight work together. He said that it was okay that Sasuke wasn't involved, because Sasuke was going to be the team medic. It was easier for two people to fight in close quarters together than for three. 

"Plus," he added idly, "You two are going to surprise the hell out of some people when they realize that Sakura and Taiki are the hammers and you and Hotaru are the scalpels."

"What?" Naruto asked. "Kakashi-sensei, I thought I was supposed to be the powerhouse! 'Cause, 'cause I've got so much chakra!"

Kakashi waved his concerns away. "Yes, yes, you're the powerhouse, of course. But since Sakura figured out how to coat her hands and feet in chakra to reinforce her body, she's started hitting much harder than you do. But! Since she'll be working so close up with enemies, you'll have to have excellent aim, thus she's the hammer and you're the scalpel."

"Oh," Naruto said, "That makes sense."

He and Sakura were then tied to each other by the waist, with just two feet of space available between them at any given point, and were forced to go about their day from their arrival at the training grounds until after team dinner, every day for the next two weeks. Sasuke had been particularly amused in his own quiet way, though neither Sakura nor Naruto had been, at least at first. Sakura had to drag Naruto with her to use the bathroom, which she found humiliating, and Naruto was banned from using shadow clones for the entire two weeks, which ruined most of his sparring strategies. 

Though, as he told Sakura, he also thought it was pretty embarrassing that she was there while  _he_ used the bathroom. She then told him that she thought it was pretty annoying that she had to readjust how she punched so that she wouldn't yank him over. They agreed that at least both of them were equally annoyed with this training exercise, so it was fair.

By the end of the two weeks, though, it felt almost alien to be further than two feet or so from Sakura except at night, and Naruto had to admit that they fought so much more smoothly together than he could have possibly imagined. They weren't tripping over each other or hitting each other on accident like they had been when Kakashi had first tried training them as a duo. 

"And you  _will_ be a duo," Kakashi told them. "It's not uncommon here, honestly. I know of at least a dozen duos that haven't been separated for a single mission since they  _became_ duos. It'll be good for you."

Sasuke seemed at peace with his position in the team, if in a somehow grumpy way. 

"It makes sense," he'd said when Sakura asked if he was okay with being the medic, "My eyes are valuable to the village. They won't want to risk me until after I've revived the clan and passed my eyes on."

It sounded like bullshit to Naruto, but at the same time, it didn't seem like Sasuke was unhappy. Just bullshitting on the reason why. Maybe he really liked being a medic and thought he was supposed to feel weak about it and was all confused or something. Naruto didn't know and didn't care. As long as Sasuke was happy, he supposed. 

It was weird, honestly, to not think of Sasuke as his rival. But he wasn't anymore. Sasuke was going through a whole different specialization than Naruto was and they couldn't really compare at all. Naruto hated to admit it, but he kind of liked Sasuke better now that he didn't have to try to beat him at everything. 

It seemed like Sasuke liked Naruto a little better too. His barbs and jokes and insults were much friendlier and felt a lot less like he meant them. He often used Naruto, who admittedly got hurt pretty often, as his sort of medical dummy to test the jutsu he'd learned from Hana. He also healed Sakura's wounds, of course, but Naruto got hurt more because he was more reckless. Sakura was pretty good at protecting herself from getting hurt in the first place. 

"Be careful, dumbass," Sasuke muttered when he healed a long gash Naruto had acquired from Taiki's surprisingly sharp baby teeth. 

"I'm trying," Naruto protested. 

Sasuke shook his head and mumbled something under his breath that made Sakura's head snap up. Her senses had gotten much more sensitive since Kakashi had adopted her properly. Which Naruto was not upset about at all, no sir.

"What'd he say, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked. 

"Shut up," Sasuke said.

"He said he'd hate to have to figure out how to revive you from the dead if that had gotten your throat," she replied with a smug but sort of soft grin. "He does cares about you, Naruto-kun!"

Naruto stared at Sasuke, his jaw hanging a little loose. Hotaru reached in with her snout and pressed his jaw back up. 

Sasuke stopped healing him and stood with a huff. "If you're going to tease me I'll let you heal on your own, dumbass."

"No, no," Naruto said, "I'm sorry, I just- You really care about me? And Sakura?"

"What?" Sasuke stopped moving. "What are you talking about, idiot?"

Naruto looked him in the eye. "Do you really care about us? Or do you still think we're dragging you down? 'Cause I don't think we're dragging you down, y'know?"

"You're not," Sasuke said shortly, "Dragging me down. I have to be at the clinic in an hour. Hana's going to find me someone to shadow at the hospital."

"Have fun," Naruto said sunnily. 

Sasuke, of course, grumped some more about being forced to admit he didn't dislike them. The effect was entirely ruined by his puppy wagging her tail from her perch on his shoulder. Naruto was pretty sure that Chika loved to ruin Sasuke's brooding.

. 

A week after Naruto and Sakura had finished their tied together training, Kakashi arrived at the training grounds holding a mission scroll. 

"I thought it was about time for another C-rank," Kakashi told them. "It shouldn't be as horrible as your first, though it will still probably be relatively tough. We'll be taking out bandits around a town a few days out from Konoha. Go ahead on home and start packing. I'll be by to make sure you're packing properly."

"Race you!" Naruto shouted. "Last one there has to buy dinner!"

Sasuke snorted and Sakura barked out a laugh before dashing off. Naruto cursed- he should have known better than to try to race Sasuke, at least, and he knew how much faster than him Sakura was. He was screwed. 

But hey, maybe he could wiggle his way into buying Ichiraku. He didn't say that the winner got to pick where they ate, after all.

Naturally, Naruto was the last to arrive back at the house. 

"Ha!" Sakura crowed, "I won! That means you have to buy us-!"

"Ichiraku!" Naruto said, cutting her off. "I didn't say you got to pick, did I? So nyeh!"

She took a step forward with one fist raised when Kakashi stuck his head out of the front door to call them inside. 

"Honestly," he muttered, "Bunch of newborn pups..."

Naruto ignored his teammates and headed for his room to pack up his backpack. Hotaru tried to convince him to pack her good treats, but Naruto knew that Kakashi wouldn't like that, so he didn't. He also, reluctantly, only packed a few cups of instant ramen.

He'd just finished packing when Kakashi knocked on his door frame and entered. "Alright, let's see how you did."

Naruto beamed while Kakashi rifled through his pack. He was certain he'd done it right this time. Last time, Kakashi had them pack as training, and he'd nagged all of them half to death over packing the wrong way or the wrong things or both. 

"Hm," Kakashi said, "It looks pretty good, actually. You might pack some more spare kunai, but then again, you probably won't need them. You remember the Kunai Shadow Clone jutsu? And the Shuriken Shadow Clone jutsu?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Alright then." Kakashi ruffled Naruto's hair. "Good job. Hotaru, I saw that."

Hotaru dropped the bag of treats she'd been trying to sneak into Naruto's pack and wagged her tail innocently. Naruto snickered because all three of them knew that she was fooling exactly nobody. 

"Head outside, we're going to leave after lunch. You still have to buy dinner when we get home, though."

"Aw, man..."

.

An hour later, he was walking behind Sakura, Sasuke was walking behind him, and Kakashi was walking behind Sasuke. Their puppies were at their sides and Kakashi had decided to take Bull with him for whatever reason. Naruto didn't care, honestly. He liked all of Kakashi's dogs a lot. 

"Here's how this is going to go," Kakashi said a few hours out, after the kids had finished their gossip and idle chatter, "This town has reported several bandit attacks. Thieves, generally, breaking into houses, but also there's been at least one report of rape and several regular assaults."

Naruto felt his heart harden a little. He'd been trying to figure out ways to not kill anyone, but if there's a rapist among them, then that's different. 

"It's our mission to wipe them out. There shouldn't be anyone with ninja skills, but if there are, call for me right away. Yes, even if you're sure you can take them. We don't want a repeat of our last C-rank, do we?"

Naruto shuddered. No, he very much did not want that. Hotaru looked up at him, concerned, and he leaned down to pet her. She'd heard about it, of course. Naruto had told her everything about him and his life because she was his partner and she needed to know. 

Telling Sakura, on the other hand, was much harder. He knew Hotaru wouldn't leave him, but he wasn't sure he would be able to handle it if Sakura hated him because of the kyuubi. Not that he really thought she would, but it was hard to think of her not being afraid of him. Everyone seemed to be, and with good reason, in his opinion. 

Hotaru thought that was dumb, though. She'd said, "It's not like you're the kyuubi. You're its like, prison guard. You keep it secure so it can't get out. That's something people should be proud of you for, dummy."

"If you say so," Naruto had said skeptically. 

"I do say so!" She'd said, and that had been the end of that argument. 

Naruto still didn't want to see Sakura's reaction to being told he's holding a giant chakra construct made of anger and boiling hot chakra, so he hadn't told her yet.

Still, Naruto wanted to fight another shinobi, to see how he measured up now. He knew it was a bad idea, but he didn’t really care.

"We won't make it there today," Kakashi continued, "Because I think your tree jumping needs some work, so we can't go very fast. But we will make it there tomorrow. Try not to overthink killing people, okay kids?"

Naruto laughed. "If they raped someone, then they should die. That's really a really horrible thing to do to someone, y'know?"

"Exactly," Sakura agreed. 

Kakashi chuckled. "Alright then. I guess you two don't need to worry about it. Sasuke?"

He snorted. "Rape was punishable by death, in the Uchiha clan. I still agree with that."

"Excellent. I've raised some good kids, haven't I, Bull?"

Bull barked and wagged his nub of a tail, which meant he absolutely agreed. 

They spent the rest of the day walking and running, sometimes in the trees under Kakashi's supervision, but mostly on the ground, where none of them could fall to their potential deaths. Just after the sun set, Kakashi told them to stop and set up camp. 

It wasn't the best camp any of them had made- Naruto was pretty sure Sakura got a perfect score in the academy during the camping unit- but it was nice enough. Kakashi even let them have a small, covered fire and Naruto was allowed to make one of the few cups of ramen he'd brought along. 

Naruto was too excited about their mission to sleep well, and instead took the first watch with Kakashi, even though he'd stayed up way later than he should have last night. 

"Naruto," Kakashi said when Sakura and Sasuke had gone to their bedrolls and fallen asleep. Sakura was curled up and using Taiki, who had grown exponentially in the past weeks, as a pillow. Sasuke was fast asleep on his back, with one hand on Chika's butt, keeping her from slipping off of his chest. 

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi was silent for a moment, then said, "You know there's more secrets about you than the fox, right?"

Hotaru's ears perked up. "Really?"

Naruto was taken aback. "What?" 

"I can't tell you what they are," Kakashi continued, "and I shouldn't have even told you there were secrets in the first place. But you should ask Sakura and Sasuke to help you. I never agreed with keeping the secrets, and I think it's getting to be actually dangerous to keep them now that you're a genin."

Naruto couldn't speak for a long moment, and Hotaru started asking questions for him. 

"What can you tell us?" She asked. "Can you give us any hints? How many more secrets? Who knows them?"

Kakashi shook his head. "All I can tell you is that you should ask Sakura to help you research and to ask Sasuke about his mother's old friend that died before he was born."

Naruto stared at Kakashi for a long moment before nodding. "Okay, I'll ask."

"Good."

"It's just," Naruto added, "that not a lot of people would even give that kind of a hint. I know you could get in trouble for telling me anything so, thanks, y'know?"

Kakashi nodded once. "You're welcome. Now, go to sleep. Bull and I can handle watch, and I know you were up all night last night reading Sakura's notes on that sealing scroll you two have been working on."

Naruto laughed sheepishly and fled to his bedroll, Hotaru at his heels. He slid himself in easily and waited until she burrowed in and arranged herself so her head was on his shoulder and her nose was just barely poking out of the bedroll. 

"G'night sensei," Naruto said. 

"Goodnight Naruto."

"Night sensei!" Hotaru added, her tongue lolling out mischeviously. 

"Goodnight, Hotaru."

"Night, Bull!" Naruto said, catching on. 

Night, Bull!" Hotaru echoed. 

Bull barked. 

Kakashi sighed loudly. "Okay, go to sleep you hooligans."

.

The next day, they arrived at the town that wanted the bandits gone. Kakashi forced them to exchange greetings and be polite to the townsfolk. Naruto had a great time with it; none of these people knew him or knew to be scared of him so they were all really sweet and nice to him. Sakura didn't seem to enjoy it, but she was able to put on a sweet smile and Sasuke...

Well, Sasuke was miserable and letting Chika do all his work for him as a gaggle of ladies cooed and fussed over his little dog, who was soaking the attention up like a sponge. 

Fortunately for Sasuke and unfortunately for Naruto, Kakashi retrieved them after just half an hour to go do the mission they'd been assigned to do. 

"Okay, here's the thing, kids," he said when they were just out of the village but not anywhere near the bandit's camp, "Your desensitization training isn't sufficient enough to prepare you for taking a human life. Yes, there's at least one rapist in this camp, but he's still a human and you're going to take his life. Yes, Sasuke, even you might have a bad reaction."

Sakura perked up just a bit, which let Naruto know that he'd added something that none of them were expected to hear. He elbowed her and she nodded. She'd tell him what she heard later. 

Then Kakashi began telling them the plan. "Sasuke, I want you high up. Use your fire jutsu and be on the alert for your team getting injured. Remember-"

"Team survival is more important than mission success," Sasuke muttered, "I know. Don't worry."

Kakashi nodded. "Excellent. Naruto, Sakura, stay together, use your dogs. Hotaru's got that little fire-puff of hers down, and as long as you stay calm, Naruto, you're capable of the chakra control necessary for that wind technique I taught you. You should also be fanning Sasuke's flames.”

Naruto saluted. 

"Sakura," Kakashi said, then paused as though he was trying to think of something to say, "hit 'em hard. Taiki, use those grown-up teeth you've been growing."

Both Sakura and Taiki grinned. 

Then, in a few short leaps they were hovering silently above the bandit camp. Kakashi told them to wait just a moment for him to check for civilians, and disappeared. He returned moments later with the go-ahead signal. 

Sasuke blew out a huge fireball and most of the tents began to burn. A short second later, and there were shouts of, "Fire! Fire!" and then there were bandits running around like headless chickens, trying to get the fires doused. 

Naruto and Sakura dove into the fray as one, with Hotaru weaving around their feet, nipping their opponents, and Taiki watching their blindspot. Hotaru blew out puffs of fire between nips, which was as much as she could manage for now, and Naruto would fan the little puffs with a minor wind jutsu to make fireballs about half the size Sasuke could achieve. Sakura punched and kicked her way through the bandits, which was getting her new studded gloves bloody.

During a lull in the fighting, Naruto took a moment to look towards Sasuke, who was still in the same tree in case one of them needed medical treatment. Naruto wouldn't have bothered to look otherwise, but Sasuke hadn't blown out any supporting fire in a few minutes, so Naruto was a little concerned. 

Sasuke was staring down at the camp, his eyes a little blank. Chika was licking his face with exuberance, but her fur around her neck was standing on end. Kakashi was nowhere to be seen.

Naruto whistled to Hotaru, and pointed up to Sasuke. 

"Got it!" she barked, and used Naruto as a springboard to launch herself into the trees. 

Sakura shouted a question at him and he replied, "Sasuke froze up so I sent Hotaru up to protect him until we find Kakashi!"

She saluted him and whistled to Taiki, who barked in return and started sniffing the air. 

Naruto, meanwhile, had to fend off an attacker. He fell back on the Shadow Clone jutsu because Hotaru wasn't there for him to work with, which was so much weirder than he had anticipated being. 

Taiki barked just as Naruto had put his last kunai in the man's neck. Sakura shouted, "Three o'clock! Naruto, go, I've got this!"

Naruto saluted her in return and bolted in Kakashi's direction. 

Kakashi was fighting a shinobi that had been among the bandits. Naruto was a little irritated that Kakashi hadn't told them about it because Naruto really wanted to fight another shinobi but he'd leave that for later. 

"Sensei!" Naruto called, "Sasuke froze! Hotaru's with him, but-!"

"Just a minute," Kakashi said idly, before his hand lit up with crackling, pale lightning. 

He pulled his hand from the shinobi's chest as he gurgled and spit up some blood. 

Naruto twisted his face in disgust when Kakashi flicked his hand and flung blood all over the grass beside him. The enemy shinobi fell still and it was only then that Kakashi turned his attention back to Naruto. 

"Sasuke froze?" Kakashi asked, then, "Where's Sakura?"

"She and Taiki are kicking ass, she told me to come get you, so I did."

Kakashi nodded. "Alright, let's get you back to her and I'll go see to Sasuke, okay?"

Naruto nodded and went back to Sakura, weaving into her space and smashing a couple of shuriken into the guy coming up on her blind spot. Hotaru joined them a moment after. When he got a second, he'd make some temporary kunai, or maybe pick some up. Really, he regretted losing his last fucking kunai. 

. 

The fighting ended soon enough, and Kakashi finally brought Sasuke and Chika down to check him, Sakura, Hotaru, and Taiki over for injuries. 

"You're all clear," Sasuke said, his tone flatter than usual.

Naruto wasn't sure what to say to him. Asking him if he was okay would be stupid, because nobody who was okay just froze in the middle of a fight. Asking him if he needed anything was also stupid, because then Sasuke would think that Naruto thought that he was weak, which was just not true at all. 

"Hey, Sasuke," Sakura said, "If you wanna talk, we'll listen. Just... Please don't go all distant like you used to be, okay?"

Bless Sakura, Naruto thought as Sasuke gave her a short but hopefully sincere nod. And bless Chika, too, Naruto added when he saw that Sasuke's dog was talking to Taiki. That meant that Naruto would eventually get the information he needed because Taiki would tell Hotaru and Hotaru would tell him. It would all work out in the end, whether Sasuke wanted it to or not. 

"Kids," Kakashi called, "Collect your weapons and clean this place up. You all know the rules regarding enemy's items, yes?"

"If it belongs to a shinobi family, send it to T'n'I, if it belongs to the client, return it," Sakura recited, "otherwise it is acceptable to take."

"Excellent," Kakashi said, and waved them off to go loot the bandits. 

Naruto took the time to collect his kunai that he'd thrown and left in bodies. As he went, he also searched each of the bodies he'd left kunai in. He didn't come up with much, just some bloodstained money and a handful of jewels that he'd bring back to the village when they went to report that the mission was a success. 

Sakura, however, found a gem. 

"I'm keeping this," Sakura said, running her hand along her new treasure reverently. 

"Sakura," Kakashi said, "that's a very big battleaxe. That is probably one of the most impractical weapons possible."

It was a huge battleaxe; Kakashi was doing that thing where he purposefully understated things for comedic value. Naruto wasn't sure how Sakura was holding it so easily, but it was definitely just about as long as she was tall, and twice as wide. It had two blades, for god's sake!

Sakura glared at him. "I'm. Keeping. This." 

Kakashi raised his hands. "Alright, alright. But I don't know anyone who knows how to use one, so you're on your own in that regard."

Naruto shook his head, stunned. How the hell was he going to fight next to Sakura when she was swinging that massive axe. He'd ask Kakashi later. 

"Alright, so other than Sakura's new toy, did anyone find anything of value?" Kakashi asked after they'd burned the bodies. 

"Jewels and money," Sasuke said. 

"Same," Naruto added. 

Sakura shrugged. "I stopped looting after I recovered my weapons and found this. I didn't pick up hardly anything."

Kakashi nodded. "Okay, coinage is yours. Hand over they jewels. I'll go ahead back to the village to tell them that they don't have to worry about the bandits anymore. You lot can go set up camp, okay? Remember what I told you about mission aftercare."

Naruto remembered that lesson very clearly. Mostly because Kakashi kept making sex jokes and then getting embarrassed because he remembered they were a little young to be told sex jokes. Not that Naruto minded- he'd heard worse directed at the girls who lived in the apartments near his old one, but Sakura was clearly uncomfortable and Sasuke didn't seem to catch any. Or, if he did, he was being purposely obtuse. 

So, shortly after Kakashi left, the three of them set up camp, and then promptly stared at each other for a solid minute before anyone said anything. 

"I don't think we're at the cuddling stage yet, right?" Sakura said. 

"No, we're not," Sasuke agreed. 

The three of them sat down around the fire, their puppies curled up on each of their laps as best they could- only Chika was small enough still to really fit on anyone's lap. Taiki could only fit his head and one leg into Sakura’s lap, and Hotaru was draped inelegantly across Naruto’s.

Naruto scritched between Hotaru's ears and she thumped her foot into the air eagerly. She'd gotten so big in the few months he'd had her. He honestly didn't even remember what it was like to live without her, now that he thought about it. He was a little sad that she'd outgrown the ridiculous fluffy puppy fur. 

And right in the middle of remembering the time that Hotaru had tumbled tail over snout chasing after a ball, he was slammed with the realization that he'd killed someone. 

"Oh," Naruto said. 

Sakura looked about as startled as Naruto felt.

Sasuke, of course, continued looking sour, but his hands gave him away- one hand was clenched so hard his knuckles were white and the other was softly petting Chika. 

"So this is what being a shinobi is, huh?" Naruto said. 

"I guess so," Sakura agreed, hesitantly.

"No," Sasuke said, startling them both. "It's not."

Naruto looked at Sasuke again. His expression had moved from sour to angry.

"Being a shinobi isn't about killing people, whether they deserve it or not," Sasuke continued. "We kill people, but we don't do it for the sake of killing. The only people who kill for the sake of it are psychopaths. We kill to protect and avenge innocents."

Then, of course, he stopped there, because Sasuke didn't speak much usually anyway. Still, it gave Naruto some hope, both for the world and for Sasuke. Naruto really worried about him, honestly. Nobody went through something like he did without some sort of scars. Naruto was dense, but he definitely wasn’t dense enough to not know how Sasuke’s family died.

"Well," Naruto said, brightly even though he didn't feel like being cheerful, "Then I'm going to make it my goal to do everything I can to prevent the need to avenge innocents."

Sasuke nodded sharply, and Naruto beamed at his approval.

"Okay," Sakura said, "But Kakashi will probably smack us if we don't at least do some of the aftercare checklist. So..."

The first item on the checklist was to cuddle. The second was to talk through what happened. So, Naruto started on recapping his and Sakura's teamwork, easily skipping over what had happened to Sasuke because obviously it was a bad idea to ask him what had happened because that would only piss him off. 

"I had a flashback," Sasuke said, when Naruto got to the point where he was talking about how he sent Hotaru up to Sasuke while he went to get Kakashi.

"Oh," Naruto said. 

Sasuke added, "Of That Night. That's what happened to me. It was the blood. I had a flashback and then a panic attack."

"Thank you for telling us," Sakura said. "Do you want to talk more about it or...?"

"No," Sasuke said. 

Sakura nodded a little awkwardly. 

It might not have been much, but Naruto couldn't help but see it as improvement, Sasuke talking about his feelings. 

"Anyway," Naruto said loudly, "Man, I can't wait to eat some Ichiraku. Dont' worry, I'll still buy yours! I didn't forget that you won, Sakura-chan!"

.

Naruto woke up in the middle of the night. He was too hot and didn't know why. Hotaru was pretty warm, but...

He glanced down, and saw so much more hair than he was used to seeing on his bed, well, bedroll. There was the usual mound of black and white, plus one big pile of orange, one smaller pile of orange, plus a surprising head of braided pink hair and an even more surprising birds nest of black hair. 

Naruto lifted his head up, hoping to find Kakashi and ask him what the hell happened without waking any of his team up. 

Kakashi met his eyes and smiled. He tapped his finger against his knee: THEY TRUST YOU. 

Naruto blinked back. WHY.

GOOD FRIEND. Kakashi tapped. SAFE. HONEST. GOOD.

Naruto didn't know what to say to that. 

GO TO SLEEP, Kakashi added. 

He didn't know what else to do, so he did. Probably nobody would talk about this in the morning anyway, so it wasn't worth worrying about. 

 


	4. Sasuke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm changing the timeline all over the place. I do make mention of it in this chapter, but the kids are fourteen now. It never made sense to me that they were pushed through the chuunin exams so fast, so here, they aren't. I'm still doing the chuunin exam invasion plot, though.

Sasuke was quieter than usual when they returned to Konoha. He could admit that the mission had shaken him up, especially since his teammates had seen his panic attack. Since he'd told his teammates he'd had a panic attack. He figured he could be forgiven for seeing his first slaughter since That Night, but mostly he hated that his teammates had seen him at his weakest. 

It didn't help that they were insisting upon spending the night together, the six of them. 

"It's night!" Naruto protested, "and your old place is closest to the gates! I know we're shinobi, but we'll get in huge trouble if we hurt a civilian just 'cause we couldn't see him, y'know?"

Sasuke didn't stay every night at the Hatake compound because he did still need space sometimes. The Uchiha compound was supposed to be his and his alone, where he could go to get away from everything, and to remember why his goal was what it was. 

"Yea, c'mon Sasuke," Hotaru chimed in, "Let us spent the night at your place!"

Sasuke looked to Sakura, hoping that, since she'd gotten over her stupid fangirl thing, she'd be the voice of reason here. 

She shrugged. "It sounds like a good idea to me. I'm tired, you're tired, Naruto's only not tired because of some secret thing we're not supposed to know about. We all know Kakashi won't mine being free of us for a night. Can we crash on your couch at least?"

Chika licked his ear. He grimaced, then nodded once and began walking towards his house. He was outnumbered, and it wasn't worth it to argue. 

The three of them arrived at his home, and he took his shoes off. Sakura and Naruto did as well after a moment, and he led them into the kitchen. 

"Help yourselves," he said, and started cooking enough rice for the three of them. Tsubaki-san had made sure all three of them knew how to cook at least a simple meal, so Sasuke was pretty sure they could handle themselves.

Sakura opened his fridge while Naruto rifled through his pantry. Sasuke stopped paying attention to them and hoped they wouldn't trash his kitchen.

He started paying attention again when he realized that Sakura was heating up a pan and putting oil in it while Naruto chopped up meat and vegetables. Sasuke had no idea where he even got the vegetables because Sasuke hadn't bought any in a week because he didn't want them to rot while he was away. 

"You like stir fry, right?" Sakura asked. She'd seen him eat stir fry twice a week at the Hatake compound for the past however many weeks. "Everyone likes stir fry."

He said nothing and just let it happen. An odd sensation echoed through his chest, and he promptly decided to ignore it. He didn't know what it was and therefore it wasn't important, right? At least, he wouldn't admit that he knew what it was. It wasn't necessary, and would, in fact, probably lead to more hurt than not. So no, he didn't know what it was, and he didn't want to find out.

Naruto took over at the stove while Sakura set the table- they'd learned the hard way that Naruto couldn't be trusted with ceramic plates, during a D-rank a few weeks ago. Sakura set down a hot pad for the skillet just as Naruto lifted it from the stove. 

It was still weird to see them so perfectly in sync with each other. Sasuke had no idea how Kakashi had done it so fast. Nearly half of the Uchiha clan had been a duo with another person, and Sasuke knew that it took a long time, on average, to get to the level that Sakura and Naruto were at. 

Sasuke wryly thought that it was probably best that Kakashi didn't make him partner with one of his teammates, because he wouldn't want to wish the Uchiha Obsession upon anyone. Which reminded him that he was supposed to tell them about that. 

Kakashi had told him weeks ago to do it, but he'd been putting it off. He wanted to change the Uchiha clan, and it seemed like a better idea to him to not fall for the Uchiha Obsession and teach whatever children he has in the future to not fall for it, either. Kakashi had argued, "one needs to know one's past to avoid repeating it." So Sasuke had begrudgingly promised he would. Eventually. In any case, he hadn't fallen prey to it yet, so it wasn't necessary until he did.

Dinner was quiet, relatively. Naruto and Hotaru talked most of the time, with a break for Sakura to lecture Naruto on proper table manners. 

The pang was back, and Sasuke caught himself before his gaze could soften while he watched Sakura chiding Naruto and Naruto meekly accept the chiding. 

Fuck it, he thought, and cleared his throat, catching the attention of his teammates. 

"Yeah?" Naruto asked, clearly eager to escape Sakura's lecture.

Sakura looked at him with her horribly pretty green eyes that nearly had him losing his train of thought. He shook himself internally, and pieced together what he needed to say. 

"Kakashi said I should tell you this," Sasuke said, reluctant to admit to any failure, not least of all one of willpower, "The Uchiha might have been disliked by the general population, but we were still favored for so long because..."

Naruto and Sakura and their dogs both leaned forward just a little, clearly interested.

Sasuke wanted to take his words back into his mouth, but it was too late. "The Uchiha have a... genetic disposition toward obsessive behavior, mostly directed at other people they attach themselves to."

Naruto scratched his head, but Sakura's eyes widened a little. 

"So all the stories of Uchiha breaking rules to go after spouses and best friends and family are true?" she asked, "they're not exaggerations? Some of them are so wild! I mean, the one about Miho Uchiha..."

"That one  _is_ exaggerated," Sasuke said, sick of hearing about how Miho Uchiha, a genin, rescued her entire team during the war by cutting through a whole platoon of Iwa nin. "She snuck around and only killed a small squad that was guarding her team, not a whole platoon or whatever version you heard said."

"Still," Sakura said, "The only things people talk about with your family are like, your eyes and the crazy stories of revenge or rescue."

Sasuke shrugged, done talking. 

"So, so does that mean like, you'll come rescue us if we get captured?"

Naruto sounded so touched, but wary, like he was expecting a no. Sasuke hated to admit it, but he absolutely would rescue his teammates. He didn't want to be like his family, thought of as a wild card in any team, but sometimes lucky to have around. He wanted to be seen on his own merit. 

He hated Naruto's pitifully sad tone worse. 

"Yes." Sasuke stood and scooped Chika up. "I'm going to bed."

.

Sasuke tossed and turned on his futon. He wanted to curse at Sakura for convincing him to curl up on Naruto while he slept, because now he missed it. Which was horrible. He wasn't supposed to need anyone, because if he needed someone, he'd get Obsessed. 

"Sasuke," Chika said softly. She didn't like to speak when others could hear her. "I think it's too late."

"No, it isn't," Sasuke argued, just as softly. "I'm not obsessed with anyone. I'm content being alone, aside from you. And I know you're not my Person."

Chika huffed, pretending to be offended. 

"You know what I mean," Sasuke said, going along just a little bit with her dramatics. 

"Anyway," Chika said, "You're wrong. You love-"

"No, I don't-!"

Chika kept talking over him. "Both of them."

That stopped Sasuke cold. Both of them? Naruto  _and_ Sakura? That wasn't possible, was it? Sasuke hadn't heard of any Uchiha having more than one Person. He'd heard of a few Uchiha whose Obsessions had been hobbies, and on one very weird occasion, a place, but never more than one. 

Except...

"Uchiha Miho," Chika said, "had three People." 

"Fuck," Sasuke said, and got up.

He said nothing to Sakura when she looked at him as he came down the stairs, and he said nothing to Naruto, who asked him if he was okay. He said nothing to either Hotaru or Taiki, who both gave him and Chika knowing looks. 

He sat down next to Sakura, who was looking at him, a little stunned. She was still holding the top part of a bottle of nail polish- the good stuff, made for shinobi- and one of Naruto's hands. 

"Don't let me stop you," Sasuke said flatly.

Naruto and Sakura exchanged looks, then Sakura shrugged and continued painting Naruto's fingernails black. The only colors that the shinobi grade nail polish came in was black, red, purple, and clear, which Sasuke only knew because of That Man. 

"Like I was saying," Sakura said, dipping the brush back into the bottle, "This stuff is great for protecting your nails in combat. You know how kunoichi always have nice hands? That's because we take care of ourselves, dummy."

"Wouldn't it be better to like, look like you're tough, though?" Naruto asked. 

Sasuke snorted. "How is she supposed to blend in, then, dumbass? Men can have rough hands and not be suspected of being a shinobi, but that'll give a woman away any day."

Naruto nodded. "Okay, that makes sense."

"I'll do yours, Sakura," Sasuke added, a little quieter than he meant to.

Sakura gave him a wary but interested look. "You sure?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, forcing his voice to a more normal level. "But I'll wait until yours are dry so you can do mine. Dumbass here is bound to make a mess."

"Hey!"

"No, no, he's right," Sakura agreed. "Alright then, Sasuke, you've got yourself a deal."

If there was one thing Sasuke knew about the Uchiha Obsession (Though he did have to have this particular lesson beaten into him by Kakashi) was that it was pointless to try to avoid it, because that would always end badly for everyone. 

So Sasuke leaned back and bickered with Naruto while Sakura painted his nails and waited his turn. 

.

It wasn't like he could ignore it now that he knew that they were his People, but at the same time he refused to act weird around them. Naruto would probably accuse him of being an impostor and Sakura might revert back to her nonsense fangirling, which was the last thing he wanted. 

Kakashi noticed, of course. He winked at him and said, "Good job on figuring that out."

Sasuke replied, "I didn't. Chika did."

"Aw, Chika, I had a bet running with Shiba..."

Of course, that exchange had confused his teammates, but Kakashi redirected their attention when he announced that he'd found people to help train them in the specializations he thought they'd be good at. 

Actually, now that Sasuke thought about it, it seemed like Kakashi did that a lot. He'd have to keep that in mind for the next time Kakashi dropped some bomb on them. 

"Sakura, you're going to be training with Might Gai for an hour each day we train, at training ground forty. I arranged it so it would be the same time that Sasuke's at the hospital, so try to get him to heal you if anything happens. Naruto, you're going to be training with an old teammate of mine, Tenzo. He'll show up when he shows up. Be prepared to not get a lot of sleep for the next while."

Naruto and Hotaru (and Taiki, for some reason) jumped around like idiots, and Sasuke had to suppress the smile that wanted to break out across his face. Then he scowled, because he was still fucking furious that he'd run smack into the Uchiha Obsession without being able to stop himself.

"Wait," Sakura said, "are you talking about that man in the green jumpsuit that's always challenging you to competitions?"

Kakashi tilted his head toward the sky briefly. "Yes, unfortunately. This is one thing I'm going to apologize for putting you through, Sakura. I'm very sorry."

"I need to head toward the hospital," Sasuke told Sakura. "Forty is on the way. I'll walk you."

Sakura nodded and whistled for Taiki, who stopped bouncing with Naruto and Hotaru and stood next to her. 

Chika snuffled in his ear, raidiating smugness. He bonked her with his head, unbalancing her. She caught her footing, of course, but it still made him feel better to retaliate a little when she was being smug and annoying like that. 

Sakura giggled. 

"What?" Sasuke demanded.

"It's so weird still to see you being playful with her," Sakura said. She reached over to gently pull on Taiki's ear. "It's nice sometimes, to see that you're... I don't know, human?"

Sasuke huffed. He was totally human. He didn't have to project his emotions for everyone to see, is all. 

"By the way," Sakura said, in a more serious tone, "Naruto was talking to me before you came downstairs the other night, and he wanted some help from us. He didn't mention it to you when you came down, because we'd already switched topics, but..."

"What?" Sasuke asked. 

"Kakashi told Naruto to ask us to help him find out some secret about him. I'm going to the library after training's over to see what I can find."

"I can join you," Sasuke said before he could stop himself. He covered up his irritating eagerness to hang out with her by adding, "I have to do some anatomy studying anyway."

"That would be nice," Sakura said with a smile, then frowned and added, "Also, Kakashi told Naruto to ask about your uh, your mom's old friend who died before you were born." 

"Kushina?" It was the only friend his mother had ever spoken of, so it had to be her. "She didn't die before I was born. She died a few months after. Mom always told me that Ita- my brother and I were what got her through the loss."

He doesn't tell Sakura that Kushina was his mom's Person, but he figured she'd understand regardless.

"Kushina..." Sakura muttered. "Okay, that gives me a decent starting point. I'll be at the chuunin-level library- I have special dispensation, and I'm allowed to bring one person with me as long as I check them in- from about nine to ten, maybe later if I get too involved in researching."

Sasuke nodded and waved as she left the road and darted into training ground forty. 

.

"Do you remember her family name?" Sakura asked idly. 

"I think it started with U or O. She mostly just called her Kushina-chan."

Sakura shrugged. "Anything to possibly narrow it down, the faster we'll figure out this mystery. Although, I think it's weird that Kakashi just told Naruto to tell me to research. Wouldn't that mean that anyone could find out if they just looked?"

Sasuke didn't know what to say to that. 

"I'll take double-O's, you take U," Sakura said, handing him a registry scroll of deceased shinobi. 

He took it and started scanning. He had gotten very familiar with these scrolls since That Night. He knew the best way to find a name when you only knew part was to pick a character that stood out and-

Kushina Uzumaki, spouse redacted.

"Found her," Sasuke said, his voice distant to his ears. 

"Oh my god," Sakura said. "Naruto's going to freak out. Oh my god. Is this his mom?"

"Yes," Sasuke said. 

Sakura turned her head to squint at him. "You know more, don't you?"

"My mom had a picture of her," Sasuke said slowly. "Here."

He pulled it out of his pouch- he'd grabbed it just in case. Kushina was in the center of the photograph, her long, wild red hair framing her face. Behind her, just visible in the shot, was a blonde man with blue eyes and a very, very familiar facial structure.

"Oh," Sakura said. "This is big."

"Yes."

"Can we tell Naruto without him blabbing?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, frowning at her. "He's an idiot, but he's not that stupid."

Sakura shook her head. "Sorry, sorry. You're right. Hey, do you know where to get copies of photos? I bet Naruto would like to have a picture of his parents."

Sasuke didn't know, so Sakura left their table and went up to a librarian to ask while Sasuke tidied up their table and dumped the books and scrolls they'd been looking through on the to-reshelve cart. Except for the anatomy book- that, he was going to check out. 

They left the library, collected their dogs from the alley just to the side, stopped by a food stand for snacks (of which Chika and Taiki stole approximately half of), and then went to the photocopier that the librarian had told Sakura about. 

The shopkeeper scowled at them when they handed the photo over, so Sasuke put double the price in cash on the counter, one eyebrow raised. The shopkeeper then shrugged and went about his business silently before handing the photo back, along with the copy he'd made with his machine. 

"Do you remember anything else your mom said about her?" Sakura asked, purposefully vague now that they were surrounded by people.

"Some," Sasuke said. "I'll tell you both when we get back- to the house." 

He'd almost said home. When had the Hatake compound become home and not the Uchiha compound? That was annoying, frankly. 

They went home and found Naruto snoring on the couch, with Hotaru on his chest, rising and falling with his breaths. Sasuke hated to admit that it was horribly cute. 

"Oh my god," Sakura said quietly, "He's so cute when he's sleeping."

"He snores," Sasuke argued, though he knew it was a weak one.

Sakura waved him off. "You're already used to it, Sasuke, don't pretend any different."

He couldn't argue that, so instead he reached out and smacked Naruto's bare foot with his anatomy book and leaned out of the way for the automatic swipe that he'd absolutely anticipated. 

"Huh? Sasuke, Sakura, why'd you wake me up?" Naruto whined. "I just got away from crazy Tenzo-sensei! You wouldn't believe what he's had me doing all day!"

"Oh, boo hoo," Sakura said, "I just spent an hour and a half with a fitness freak and I'm still up and walking, aren't I?"

Sasuke bit down a smirk. She'd been wobbly and weak when he'd picked her up from training ground forty, and she had needed him to stabilize her until they got to the library. But if she wanted to rag on Naruto, he wasn't going to stop her. His reactions were always amusing.

"Aw, c'mon Sakura...."

"Anyway," she said loudly, "You know that thing you had us research? We found something."

Naruto's eyes flashed with interest and all of the sleepiness and whinyness left him. Hotaru's ears perked up high on her head, and both of them stared at Sakura expectantly. 

"So," Sakura began, "Sasuke's mom's Person was a lady named Kushina Uzumaki. He found a picture of her, also, and there's something you need to see."

Sasuke handed the original photo to Naruto and kept the copy in his pouch. 

"Who's this lady? Who's this guy?" he asked when he first looked at it, "And why does he look almost exactly like me? Wait!"

Naruto grabbed the photo with both hands and brought it close to his face and squinted at it. Sasuke watched his eyes dart all over and saw the exact moment that the realization hit him, and reached out just in time to catch the photo as it slipped through Naruto's fingers.

"Those are my-? How did you-? What's their-? Why didn't-?"

"Yes," Sasuke said calmly. "We looked up my mother's friend in the deceased registry. Her name is Kushina Uzumaki. His name is Minato Namikaze. I suspect nobody told you for fear of the secret getting out and someone assassinating you."

"Oh my god," Naruto said, falling backwards to lay back on the couch. "Oh my god."

"Are you okay, Naruto-kun?" Sakura asked, leaning forward a bit like she wanted to reach out to him but wasn't sure if she should.

"Oh my god," he said again. 

"I think we broke him," Sakura whispered to Sasuke.

Sasuke shrugged. "He'll recover in a minute, probably. Hotaru, what do you want for dinner? I'm going to start in on it soon. Tsubaki-san's out for tonight."

"Anything but ramen," Hotaru said. "I just want one month without ramen for dinner, is that too much to ask? How does Naruto eat so much of it?"

Sakura laughed. "Who knows?"

Sasuke left the living room and entered the kitchen. He tossed on one of the aprons, because he'd learned his lesson about cooking here without one after the fifth time a dog knocked into him while he was holding hot food. Luckily, most of those incidents had happened after he'd started in at the clinic, so he at least knew a basic healing jutsu by then. 

Still, it's better to prevent than to heal in any case.

He'd been thinking of that a lot recently. Hana and the instructors at the hospital have beaten and are still beating that lesson into him and the other trainees. He knew for certain that the civilian doctor trainees were told something entirely different: do no harm. 

Of course that wouldn't work for medic nin, though. They had to be able to defend themselves on the battlefield, and they had to kill enemies just like any other shinobi did. "Do no harm" would get someone killed in a fight. 

It was starting to sound like a better nindo than "revenge" anyway, and, honestly, revenge could be gotten while still preventing injury. If he killed That Man, he'd prevent him from killing or hurting anyone else, right? 

.

 

"Alright kids," Kakashi said, about a week after Sasuke and Sakura had told Naruto about his parentage. "You've been with me for about a year, so I've been thinking that putting your names in for the chuunin exams might not be a bad idea."

"Kakashi-sensei, please!" Naruto shouted. "We'll blow everyone else out of the water, y'know! We can totally do it! Sign us up!"

Kakashi looked at Sakura, who grinned her newly toothy grin, then at Sasuke who nodded. 

"Alright then." Kakashi shrugged. "If you really think so, why don't I test you three? The Bell Test again, but this time I'll fight you with only the things I knew as a chuunin, and at half of my physical strength. If you can get both bells off of me, I'll sign you up. Deal?"

"Deal," all three of them agreed. 

Kakashi told them to wait while he went and got the bells from the house, and all six of them huddled up to talk strategy. He returned moments after they'd broken apart, their plan and three backup plans solidified. 

"Okay, pups," Kakashi said, holding up the bells just like he had that first day, "Come at me like you mean to kill me."

Sakura and Naruto lunged forward, Sakura's battleaxe raised high. Naruto was still in search of the perfect companion weapon, but hadn't found it yet, so he was sticking to kunai. Hotaru weaved around their feet and Taiki followed up behind. 

Sasuke and Chika, on the other hand, went to flank Kakashi. Not to grab the bells, but to make him think they were going to try to grab the bells. 

Kakashi threw himself back and away from Sakura and Naruto, barely dodged Taiki's teeth, and caught his footing just in time from Hotaru tripping him. 

Sasuke saw his opportunity and shouted as he darted for Kakashi's belt. 

As Naruto predicted, he dodged again, right into the trap he'd had set up while he was gone. Of course, Kakashi as a chuunin had still been too good to fall for a simple tripwire, but Sakura had predicted that and so Naruto had changed the trap to drive him back in towards them again. It worked. 

So now Kakashi was fighting just Sakura, who was swinging her battleaxe while she cackled joyously. Naruto was still weaving around her, but wasn't doing much more than redirecting some of Kakashi's punches. 

Sasuke was waiting for his cue- a particularly high pitched cackle from Sakura- and when he heard it, he darted in again, hands glowing with a chakra scalpel. He'd be lucky if he even grazed Kakashi with it, but injuring him wasn't the goal here. 

Kakashi yelped and clutched at his arm, where Sasuke had managed to get in a lucky strike, which left his side open for Naruto to snatch the bells. 

Sakura crowed, but Kakashi pulled away in time so that Naruto only got one bell.

"Jeez, pups," Kakashi panted. "I did a better job than I thought I did. Still, you have to get both, and defend the one you have. Ready for round two?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and ignored Sakura and Naruto responding, instead throwing Chika at Kakashi's head and speeding into his personal space again. He still didn't expect to get the bells, but it was worth a shot, and it would throw Kakashi off for Naruto and Sakura to recoup and try to get the other bell. 

Kakashi kicked Sasuke back, sending him flying past Sakura. Naruto ran to Sasuke while Sakura and both of their dogs went at Kakashi alone for a moment. 

"Here," Naruto said, "You're the most likely to keep a hold on this thing. If you could cover us with some fire, that'd be great, y'know?"

Sasuke nodded and submitted to just a moment of Chika licking his face before getting back up and shooing Naruto back into the fray. 

Naruto went with a grin, seamlessly sliding himself back into Sakura's side. Sasuke scooped Chika up and tucked her into the collar of his shirt, where she promptly anchored herself to his skin with chakra running through her paws. The trees seemed like a safe place to rain fire down on Kakashi without being too likely to hit Sakura or Naruto, so up he went. 

Sasuke had to admire the way his teammates moved together. He would almost be jealous, but he also knew himself well enough to know that he'd hate fighting in such close quarters with anyone, even his People, unless he had to. That teamwork with Naruto in Wave had been a fluke, he was sure. They'd tried to recreate it and hadn't succeeded. 

He let loose a Phoenix Flower jutsu every time he figured Naruto and Sakura were far enough away from Kakashi to not get burned. He knew how to heal burns, of course. It had been one of his first lessons at the hospital after he'd told the medic he'd been shadowing that day that he knew quite a few fire jutsu. 

"Well, then you'd best know how to fix any training accidents," she'd grumbled, and promptly spent the next hour showing him how to piece burned skin back together. 

Naruto screamed- not his usual scream of excitement or happiness, but of pain. 

"Fuck," Sasuke said, getting ready to lunge into the battle.

"No, Sasuke," Sakura shouted, "Keep it safe!"

Sakura was acting commander right now, by popular vote, so Sasuke sat back on his heels. He growled lowly, horribly worried about Naruto even though he knew the idiot healed fast. 

"I can go," Chika whispered.

"Your Healing Bite still can't heal very much," Sasuke argued. 

She huffed and shook her head. "I can take away the pain, at least. My Numbing Bite works just fine."

Sasuke conceded, and angled his head so she could leap out of his collar. She didn't jump straight down, so as to not give his position away, but darted a few yards over before leaping down onto Naruto. 

"Chika!" Naruto yelped, "What-?"

She barked and flashed him her glowing teeth before biting him through his jumpsuit. He shouted in surprise, before thanking her and giving her a boost back into the trees. 

Kakashi had faltered just a moment, confused, and Sakura took advantage of his confusion to reach out and yank the last bell off of his belt. 

"HA!" she shouted. "We win, sensei!"

"Huh," Kakashi said. "I guess you did. Well done! I'll get you the paperwork for the exam tomorrow morning."

Sasuke heaved a sigh of relief and hopped down from his perch to check Naruto for injuries. He'd gotten a bruised rib, of course, and so Sasuke healed it up without a thought. 

"Thanks," Naruto said, grinning at him. 

Naruto's eyes were so blue, Sasuke realized. There were at least three different shades, and his irises got progressively darker the closer to his pupils they got. 

"Sasuke?" Naruto said. 

Sasuke realized he hadn't replied, and that his heart had, in fact, skipped a few beats. He coughed. "You're welcome. Be more careful next time."

"I'm always careful!"

Sakura snorted. "No you aren't!"

"Am so!"

"Are not! Anyway." Sakura shook her head. "Sasuke, can you check my wrist? I forgot to reinforce my hand before we started round two, and I want to make sure I didn't sprain it."

Sasuke took the hand she had offered him, and did a quick exam of her wrist. He didn't see anything wrong, but he did see the callouses on her hands that she'd earned in the short time she'd been working with Gai and his team. It took a bit of effort to surpress the urge to run his fingers over her palm. 

"You're fine," Sasuke said. 

She beamed. "Thanks, Sasuke-kun!"

He nodded and promptly ignored the knowing look that Kakashi was giving him. He didn't want to talk about it, and he absolutely did not want to talk about it here, in front of them. 

"I think," Sasuke said, "that we deserve a reward for that. Like dinner."

"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto shouted. "Kakashi-sensei, you owe us dinner!"

Kakashi protested, "What? Your prize is getting the paperwork! Not dinner!"

"Okay," Sakura replied, "But how about both?"

Kakashi was then outnumbered, and Sasuke took quite a lot of pleasure in the petty revenge he'd gotten. Maybe next time Kakashi would keep his smug looks to himself. 

.

Sasuke looked up at the knock on his door frame. 

"Can I come in?" Kakashi asked. 

Sasuke shrugged. "I have to memorize this before tomorrow, so only if it's quick."

Kakashi entered and shut the door behind him. "I wanted to talk to you about your feelings for Sakura and Naruto, if you don't mind?"

"I do mind," Sasuke replied sharply. "I won't let it interfere with missions."

"No, no," Kakashi said, sitting down on the floor across from him. "I know that. I just wanted to let you know it's okay and that I think you should go for it when you're ready."

Sasuke stared at him for a long moment. "What?"

"I know what love looks like, pup," Kakashi said softly. "And I know you three are young, but we're shinobi. If they make you happy, you should let them know. We have to take what we can, while we can. It's pointless to avoid something for fear of it going wrong."

Sasuke said nothing. It sounded to him like Kakashi was speaking from experience. 

"It could go horribly wrong," Kakashi admitted. "It's possible that they'd reject you and not see you the same if you told them."

"Thanks," Sasuke said dryly. 

Kakashi continued over him, "But that possibility is so low that I wouldn't even know how to quantify it. They love you just the same."

Sasuke hummed. 

Kakashi stood back up. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you had my blessing."

"Thank you," Sasuke said, quiet but sincere.

"Oh, one more thing." Kakashi turned just as he was opening the door to look at him again. "Sakura was very relieved when I couldn't adopt Naruto into the clan, and doesn't know why."

Sasuke heard the part that Kakashi left off: that both he and Sasuke did know why. 

Kakashi left, leaving the door open. 

"I told you," Chika said in her soft voice, "you have a chance."

Sasuke ducked his head to hide the smile he couldn't hold back. Maybe he did have a chance. Maybe he'd see what his luck would bring him, sometime.

 


	5. Sakura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one I didn't edit, so forgive any errors or typos. 
> 
> I read all of your comments, and I am so extremely grateful to have received so much attention for this fic! I never quite know how to respond to compliments and I'm trying very hard to not to spoil things in comments! 
> 
> Someone said that this was very fast paced and trust me, I know! I've been trying to slow it down as best I can without slowing it to a crawl. 
> 
> However, you can totally talk to me about this or other things over on tumblr at [sgt-bucky!](https://www.sgt-bucky.tumblr.com/)

Sakura woke up before her boys did, as usual. Naruto slept in pretty late, and Sasuke wasn't exactly a morning person, either. She hadn't quite known that until her boys had stopped sleeping in their own room and started sleeping in hers, instead. 

She smiled at them, even though they weren't awake to see it, and ran her hands through Naruto's and then Sasuke's hair gently. A year ago, she'd have killed to get her hands on Sasuke's hair, and wouldn't have wanted to even touch Naruto with a ten foot pole. Now she was just as eager to cuddle Naruto as she was Sasuke, and just as likely to tell Sasuke he was being an idiot as Naruto. 

It took her a minute to extract herself from under Naruto's arm and to relax Sasuke's grip on her sleep shirt, but she succeeded. Taiki would stay with them until Sasuke got up, and then he'd join her after eating breakfast. 

She gathered her clothes and crept to the bathroom to change. She knew she could change while they were there- Kakashi had beaten the unnecessary modesty and pervertedness out of them in one go, during a training excursion months ago. Still, she felt better changing in the bathroom because she was less likely to wake either of them up. 

Kakashi was already awake and lounging on the couch, for once. He waved at her in greeting. 

"Sensei?" she asked, keeping her voice down. She would have just waved back, but she was in the process of braiding her hair. 

"Gai can't train with you today," he told her. "He came by last night, after you three had gone to bed and I told him I'd let you know."

"Oh," Sakura said, disappointed. 

Kakashi continued. "But, it is your day with me, so I thought we could just get started early. I was thinking it might be a good day to summon the Old Dog."

Sakura dropped her hair in shock. Distantly, she knew she'd have to redo her braid, but she was too distracted to really care. Kakashi had been putting off summoning the Old Dog for months, which for once she understood, because they could only do so once a year. She figured he wanted to wait for the right day. 

"Can we?" she asked. "Like, I mean, I know we're capable of it, but... You mean it?"

"Of course," Kakashi replied. "I wouldn't have offered otherwise. Breakfast first, and then wake up Taiki and we can go. I know a perfect place to do it."

Sakura started making breakfast, and when she had a minute to spare, she re-braided her hair. "You did this with him, right? When you were little?"

"Yeah. The last time I saw the Old Dog was when I was twelve, which was just before my dad died," he admitted. He turned the page in his book, which Sakura had recently discovered wasn't actually porn, but horrible sappy romances that happened to have sex in them. "Haven't gotten around to summoning her since."

"Surely you had things you wanted her advice on, though?" Sakura turned the food with the designated cooking chopsticks. Naruto had ruined some of her mom's really nice hair sticks on accident once, though nobody knew how he'd mixed them up when they looked so very different, so they'd had to designate a pair specifically for cooking so it wouldn't happen again. 

"Yeah, but... My dad died."

Sakura nodded, conceding. 

She didn't quite rush breakfast, but it was a close thing. She put a plate in front of Kakashi, went to get Taiki, ate quickly, and washed all three of the plates in the span of twenty minutes. 

"My, you're in a hurry today, Sakura-chan," Kakashi said.  

"I've been waiting for this for weeks, Kakashi-sensei," she said flatly. "So come on, let's go!"

Kakashi laughed. "Okay, okay. Why don't you go make sure training ground thirty-seven is clear? I'll be by in a few minutes. If anyone complains, tell them I sent you."

Sakura squinted at him. "You have ten minutes from the time I get there to show up or I'll sic Naruto on you with a promise of bottomless Ramen."

Kakashi laughed weakly. "Right, right. I'll be on time."

.

He was late by one minute. 

Sakura glared at him and opened her mouth to remind him of her threat that she was fully willing to carry out. 

"No, wait, I had a real reason," Kakashi said. "Gai swung by again to give me this to give to you. I think its another kata scroll?"

Sakura snatched the offered scroll, opened it, and nodded once. "Okay, I'll forgive you just this once, okay? Now, how do we summon the Old Dog?"

He told her and they began setting up. Kakashi unrolled the big summoning scroll all the way out, Sakura fetched some water from a nearby stream. Both of them sliced open a fingertip, and let ten drops of blood, each, fall into the bowl. Taiki and all of Kakashi's dogs formed a semi circle behind them.

Kakashi slowed down his hand signs so that Sakura could keep up, and they went through them at the same time, before shouting as one, "Summoning: The Grandmother!"

There was a huge plume of smoke, bigger than Sakura had ever seen. She coughed a bit when it blew her way, and then stared in amazement.

She was definately the biggest dog Sakura had ever seen in her life. She was four times as tall as Kakashi, and proportioned just like a regular, if old, dog. Her fur was thick and dark, but grey had settled in around her muzzle and on her paws. Her eyes were a yellow that would have been terrifying if not for the way she gazed softly at Sakura, Kakashi, and their dogs.

"Ah," she said. Her voice was soft and wispy. "I know you, Kakashi-chan. It has been quite a while has it not?"

"Yes, Grandmother," Kakashi said, ducking his head. "I'm sorry."

"You are forgiven." She turned to Sakura. "Who is this? She smells like your pup, but she is not. Have you adopted her?"

"Yes, Grandmother," Kakashi said. "This is Sakura Hatake, my heir. She's strong, and worthy by my standards. I hope she lives up to yours."

The Old Dog leaned forward and sniffed Sakura's hair. "She smells like my grandson, Taiki. Such a strong boy, he is. Have you treated him well, pup?"

"He's my best friend in the whole world," Sakura said, hoping her voice wouldn't waver. "I would put his life above mine any day, Grandmother."

"Good," the Old Dog said. "And he would do the same for you. I approve of your heir, Kakashi-chan. Did Sakumo-chan tell you anything before he passed away?"

"No, Grandmother," Kakashi said. "Not very much, at least. Just that you could only be summoned once a year."

"Pity," she said. "I will tell you and Sakura-chan both what you need to know before I leave, but first you may each ask my a question. I will use my Sight to find an answer."

Sakura looked to Kakashi, who nodded. She didn't know what to ask, and Kakashi seemed to have read that on her face, and so he asked:

"Where is my team going to be in twenty years?"

The Old Dog closed her eyes for a long moment. Without opening her eyes, she said, "I see bright colors, white stone, soft fabrics. I hear a roaring, the laughter of children, swords clanging. I smell puppies and salt and blood. I feel wind, and sand. I taste love and safety."

Sakura had no idea how one tasted love and safety, but she was willing to accept it.  

"My question," Sakura said slowly, "is: What will be the biggest obstacle to my team working together?"

The Old Dog huffed out a laugh. "You know the answer, do you not? Still, I will tell you what I see: black hair, wrinkles. I hear a man's voice, full of menace. I smell blood, and theft. I feel lost, and a hole where there should be a person. I taste agonizing grief."

Sakura staggered back. She'd been expecting to hear something that would imply like, her feelings for both of her teammates, or Sasuke's brother, or something normal like that. Not whatever the Old Dog was implying. 

"Do not be afraid, pup," the Old Dog said. "All ends well, should you stay on the path that you are on now. Stay true, and you will see what I Saw for your father's question."

"I will, Grandmother," Sakura said, though she didn't really see how she possibly could, knowing that something sincerely horrifying was in her future.

"Now, there is one more thing," the Old Dog said, turning to Kakashi. "Kakashi-chan, do you remember my gift to you when you were just a newborn pup?"

"Yes, Grandmother," Kakashi said, "I still have it."

"It is time for your second gift, and your heir's first." The Old Dog turned back to Sakura. "Reach into my mouth, pup, and take a tooth."

The Old Dog then opened her mouth wide, and Sakura realized that the Old Dog could probably eat her without chewing if she really wanted to. But Kakashi was waving her on, so she shakily stepped forward and reached into her mouth. She couldn't stop herself from closing her eyes, and ended up grasping blindly at the first tooth-like thing she felt. 

It came loose with just a tug, and Sakura stumbled back, having expected to need more effort. She opened her eyes again, and saw that it was a canine tooth. That didn't seem right- she was sure she'd reached farther into the Old Dog's mouth than that...

Sakura looked to Kakashi, who was already holding another canine tooth, and then again at the Old Dog, who licked her muzzle before speaking again. 

"I will see you in one year hence," the Old Dog said, and as she spoke, Sakura realized that she had all four of her canines, still. 

"Yes, Grandmother," Sakura and Kakashi said in unison. 

The Old Dog nodded exactly once, and then disappeared in a huge plume of smoke, leaving Sakura coughing and blinded. 

"Well," Kakashi said, "Do you want to learn Body Flicker jutsu?"

When Sakura had waved away most of the smoke, she said, "Yes, absolutely."

.

Sakura was pretty tired when she and Kakashi met back up with her boys for team training, but she had a new jutsu under her belt, so she couldn't be too sour about it. 

"Hey, hey, did you see that huge like, pillar of smoke this morning?" Naruto asked. "Man, gramps sure was freaked out by it! He sent someone to the house, even! Sasuke told them we had no fucking clue what it was, but they seemed pretty sure that you were the cause of it, Kakashi-sensei!"

Kakashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah, you're supposed to send notice when you summon large summons. Oops."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and Naruto laughed a little nervously. Sakura groaned and put her head in her hands. Of course Kakashi didn't do something he was supposed to when it involved paperwork. The three of them had needed a chuunin at the mission desk to show them how to fill out reports properly after he'd vanished from their very first D-rank.

"Anyway," Kakashi said, "No team training for today. The chuunin exam starts tomorrow, and you three should be well-rested for it."

"But-!"

"Kakashi-sensei!"

He waved his hand idly. "Oh, I don't mean you can't do anything. Go spy on the other teams, or something. I'll even tell you where the foreign teams are staying, just don't start anything, alright?"

"I'll keep them in line," Sasuke said. 

Sakura and Naruto both turned to him to scowl. Sure, Sakura thought, Naruto needed minding because he was a loudmouth. She was perfectly capable of controlling herself, thank you very much. 

Sasuke looked her in the eye and mouthed, 'Ino.'

Sakura let the subject drop. 

"Okay, bye, see you for dinner," Kakashi said, "send a dog if you need me, but try not to need me. A new Icha-Icha came out, and I've been dying to read it for forever."

Then he vanished. 

"It only came out this morning," Naruto said. "Jeez, he's such a fanboy, isn't he?"

"Have you ever seen him reading any other book?" Sakura asked dryly. "Calling Kakashi-sensei a fanboy is like saying the sky is blue. Anyway, let's go see what our old classmates are up to, hm?"

Her boys followed after her and she led them to where she knew Ino's team trained, but took a leisurely route, intending to pass by Team Eight and Team Gai along the way. 

Team Eight was sparring when they came upon them. 

"Hey," Naruto shouted, just biting back the 'dogbreath' that was probably automatic after so many years, "Kiba! Is your team ready for the exams?"

"What exams?" Kiba shouted back, tumbling away from his spar with Hinata. 

Naruto laughed and Sakura just knew that he was enjoying lording his knowledge over their old classmate. She rolled her eyes but left him to it. 

"The chuunin exams, of course," Naruto said, buffing his nails on his jacket. 

"You have dogs," Shino said. "How?"

That was a question that Sakura was best suited to answer, so she said, "Kakashi-sensei had us sign his family's contract, and adopted me. He tried to adopt Naruto, but his family's chakra didn't take, so... And Sasuke's his apprentice."

"Interesting," Shino said, peering at Naruto through his glasses. 

"Chuunin exams?" Kiba demanded. "Are those coming around again? Where are they this season? I'm gonna go find Kurenai-sensei and make her sign us up!"

He ran off then, and Shino sighed. "Hinata-san, we should follow him. Thank you for informing us of the impending exams."

He and Hinata darted after Kiba, leaving Team Seven a little dumbfounded. 

"Team Gai, then?" Sakura asked. 

Her boys shrugged in unison, so they trudged on, heading towards Training Ground Forty. Sakura really hoped that Gai wasn't there, because he got really annoying after a while. She understood why Kakashi bolted about two thirds of the time when he heard Gai's voice. 

Luckily for her, Gai was not there, and neither was Neji, which was a second lucky strike. Neji never shut up about destiny. She didn't know how Tenten stood it. 

"Tenten!" she shouted, "Lee! Are you signed up for the chuunin exams?"

"Yeah!" Tenten shouted back, then as Team Seven came close enough to not need to shout, said, "Are you guys? If you are, we should team up for the survival section. They always do one of those, I hear, and they're all the same."

"Really?" Naruto asked. "I woulda thought they'd mix it up more, I guess. Make it harder for people to cheat, y'know?"

"Oh, they do," Tenten said. "We've done two exams so far. We failed miserably during the survival section of our first, and none of us got past prelims in our second. I'm really confident we can go all the way through to the finals this go around, though!"

"Where's your third teammate?" Sakura asked when she saw Lee open his mouth to speak. 

Tenten shrugged. "Some branch Hyuuga came by to tell us he couldn't attend training today."

"Oh," Sakura said, remembering Kakashi's quiet, somber lesson on other clans that weren't as ethical in the treatment of their branch families. 

Naruto was part of the branch family of the Hatake clan, now. It had taken some extra paperwork, but there was luckily some precedent. Kakashi had sat them down and given a long (for him, at least) lecture about her responsibilities to Naruto and that they weren't considered siblings at all, don't worry, kiddos, to which she had pretended to be grossed out. Then he'd told them about what the Hyuuga did to their branch family. 

Sakura felt her ears ring in memory of Naruto's rant about how unfair that was and how he was going to make them change when he was Hokage and- 

She internally shook herself. 

"Teaming up for the survival section sounds like a good idea," Sasuke said.

Tenten saluted lazily. "Alright, see you then. Sakura, Gai's supposed to come back in about three minutes, so..."

Sakura grabbed her boys' arms and tugged them away as she tossed a goodbye over her shoulder. She was not dealing with Gai-sensei today. 

That left Team Ten as their last stop. 

"Oh, jeez," Naruto whined. "Are you and Ino gonna shout at each other? Or are you gonna do that annoying backhanded compliments that are actually insults?"

"Shut up, Naruto!" Sakura said.

"That means the second," Sasuke muttered. 

"Shut up, Sasuke!"

But Ino wasn't there when they arrived, nor Choji. It was just Shikamaru.

"Hey," he said. "Let me guess. Chuunin Exams? Ino just left to find you to brag about Asuma-sensei having up sign up."

Of course she had. "Damn."

"But," Shikamaru said, "I have something you might find more interesting."

Sakura perked up at that. So what if she missed Ino- Shikamaru having information that she'd find interesting was, well, more interesting. 

"Remember that first clan meeting you went to?"

She did. Hyuuga Hiashi had said something about a weapon being misused, and that creepy Danzo guy had accused Kakashi-sensei of being an unfair teacher. 

"Well," Shikamaru said, "I listened around where I shouldn't have, and I think that the 'weapon' is actually Naruto, but I'm not sure how, exactly, since he was a total idiot last I checked."

"A weapon?" Naruto said. "Me?"

"Naruto?" Sakura asked, alarmed. 

"Naruto?" Sasuke echoed, skeptical.

"Yeah, Naruto," Shikamaru confirmed. "Dad was whining about Hyuuga-san to mom, and said, and I quote: 'That poor, dumbass, orange-coated, prankster isn't a fucking weapon, he's a kid holding an insane amount of power that he doesn't even know about because of dumbass reasons.' End quote."

"What the hell does that mean?" Sakura demanded. "Power he doesn't know about? Dumbass reasons? This only raises more questions than it answers!"

Shikamaru shrugged. "It sure does, doesn't it?"

"A power I don't-? What-? How-? Who-?" Naruto fell silent, staring at Shikamaru with horrified incomprehension. 

Sakura idly scratched between Taiki's ears, thinking. Shikamaru's dad was the jonin commander, which meant he was pretty high up on the food chain, but he was talking about this to Shikamaru's mom, who was a retired chuunin. The information wasn't limited by rank, then. 

"We should go ask Kakashi-sensei, I think," Sakura said to Sasuke. Naruto was still struck stupid and silent. "I think he'd tell us if we asked, or at least point us to where we can get the answer for ourselves. You know how he is."

Sasuke nodded, and motioned to Hotaru and then to Naruto. She got the point and started nipping his heels and pushing him back towards Sakura and Sasuke. He went, wordlessly letting Hotaru herd him like a dumb sheep. 

"Thanks, Shikamaru," Sakura said. "I'll keep you updated!"

"Same to you," he replied, laying back down and waving lazily. "See ya."

.

Kakashi was home, but in his bedroom when they got home. Naruto had recovered a bit and was just looking a little sad and lost now, instead of horrified. Sakura thought it odd that he wasn't actually curious about what was happening, just sad. The Naruto she knew would be hounding anyone he could for information, not letting his teammates lead him around on a leash. 

"You okay?" Sakura asked him. 

"Not really," he replied. 

She realized that he knew what it was just then, and stepped in front of him so her shoulders were square to his and made him look her in the eye. 

"Naruto," she said, "Is it bad?"

Sasuke grunted, probably in surprise.

"Kind of," Naruto said. "But also like, not actually? It's hard to explain."

She pointed at the table. "Sit. Explain anyway."

Naruto sat stiffly, and Sasuke sat next to him. Sakura sat across from her boys- and they would always be her boys, if she were honest; not much could turn her away from them- and stared at Naruto expectantly.

"So, fourteen years ago," Naruto said, "The nine-tailed fox attacked. The Fourth Hokage defeated it. I was born the same day."

Defeated. 

"Defeated?" Sasuke asked. "He killed it."

"No," Sakura said, remembering one very obscure scroll she'd read ages ago that she could never find again afterwards, "No, he contained it, didn't he? Are you a jinchuriki?"

Naruto nodded miserably.

Sakura let out a big sigh of relief and slumped onto the table. "Oh, jeez, Naruto, I thought you'd like, killed a civilian with some sort of like, magical power or something."

"You're not... mad?"

She seriously couldn't believe how timid Naruto sounded. He was such a loudmouth normally, and Sakura kind of really thought that nothing could faze him. 

"Of course not!" Sakura said before she could actually formulate a response, then added, "I'd have been mad if you'd like, killed an innocent person or something, though, so don't do that."

Sasuke snorted. "No, idiot. You shouldn't have hid that from us, but... I get it."

"Oh." Naruto slumped against the table too. "Oh, jeez. I feel so much better, guys. I hate keeping secrets from you guys, it's awful, I never want to do it again."

"So don't," Sasuke said.

"Yeah," Sakura agreed. "We're a team. We shouldn't keep any secrets from each other. Even if we have to fight each other in the chuunin exams, during the tournament they always have at the end, okay? No more secrets, ever."

"Never," Sasuke agreed. 

"Never, ever, ever!" Naruto added. Which, to nobody's surprise, least of all Sakura's, her boys started arguing because Sasuke thought Naruto was trying to one-up him and Naruto insisted that he wasn't.

Sakura leaned back and just watched it play out. They weren't slapping each other or breaking out weapons, so it was just healthy bickering and it would be to tiring to break it up. 

Kakashi took the seat to her left. 

"Sorry I couldn't tell you," he murmured while the boys continued arguing. "It's against the law, you know."

"So was telling us to look up his parents, I bet," Sakura replied.

Kakashi shrugged and cracked open his book. "It might have been."

"Thanks."

"It was my pleasure."

.

Other than the extended argument between Naruto and Sasuke, the evening was quiet, Sakura's mom cooked a really nice dinner, and the three of them all apparently got particularly excellent nights of sleep, which was unusual, because Sasuke kicked and Naruto snored and Hotaru was a light sleeper and Chika liked to move across the bed in the middle of the night, walking over at least one person's ribs in the process. Still, somehow, all three of them woke up in good moods.

Which was good, Sakura thought, because they needed to head to the Academy as soon as possible to take the first part of the chuunin exams. 

Sakura hustled her boys, making sure both ate filling but light breakfasts, put on their good gear, packed their bags properly, and brushed their hair. 

While they were doing all of that, Sakura affixed the special headbands that finally came in after she ordered them weeks ago- the beauracracy was terrible, sometimes- to each of the dogs. Hotaru and Taiki both wore theirs as bandanas; Hotaru's was red and Taiki's was the standard blue. Sakura took a few minutes to sew Chika's into a little vest, complete with a tiny Uchiha symbol on the front, and then helped her into it. 

"You're so cute," she told Chika. 

Chika tossed her head and pranced in place a bit. "Thanks! I know!"

"Okay, let's go!" Sakura shouted. "We have an hour to get there, and I want to scout out the competition, so we have to get their early!"

Naruto came stumbling out of their shared room, Sasuke walking more gracefully behind him, and both fell into step behind her immediately upon going outside. 

It was important to show a united front, Kakashi had told them, because they were rookies, and would be the easiest-looking targets for more experienced teams. They'd look less like fresh meat if they picked a leader and followed their orders, and acted like the most cohesive team they'd ever seen. Which meant, of course, that Sakura had insisted upon being team leader, because neither of her boys would accept the other being team leader. 

They'd agreed after a while, and so now they followed behind her easily, because Kakashi had insisted that they actually train in walking together in sync. Sakura had thought it ridiculous at first, but she'd soon admitted that it was worth it. Especially since Hotaru and Taiki had tripped all of them that first couple of times.

As they entered the Academy and saw a large crowd of people surrounding a second floor room. 

"We're supposed to go to room 301 aren't we?" Naruto said lowly. "I know I'm kind of dumb sometimes, but this is the second floor, right?"

"It's a genjutsu on the door sign," Sasuke replied. 

Sakura frowned. "I don't want to fuss with that. Should we go around from the roof?"

Sasuke shrugged. 

Naruto nodded and began to lead. Sakura wasn't about to argue- who knew how often Naruto had snuck out and back into the Academy while they still attended as students? 

He led them up a wall, said, "This is way easier than it used to be! Chakra sticking is super useful! I wish Taiki could do it a little better, though," as he heaved the big orange dog up when he slipped. They went up the far wall by the weapons practice area, and into a fourth floor room through an already open window. A class was taking place, to Sakura's surprise, and apologized. 

"Sorry to interrupt, we just wanted to avoid the crowds, pardon us, sensei," she said, bowing in apology. 

The teacher grumbled and the class giggled and chattered loudly. There were at least four separate shouts of "puppy!" that Sakura heard.

Sasuke pushed Naruto through and Sakura followed, bowing once more before shutting the door behind her. 

"Naruto!" she scolded. 

"He never minds!" he argued. "we used to slip through his room all the time, okay? He just grumps and tells you to get to class, I promise."

"It's true," Sasuke said. 

Sakura spun on him. "How do you know that?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Snuck out once. Followed Shikamaru back through."

Sakura threw her hands into the air. "Troublemakers! The both of you! I can't believe this!"

"We should head to the room," Sasuke said. 

She conceded and stalked down the hallway, her boys and all of their dogs behind her. Taiki and Hotaru walked between Sasuke and Naruto, and Chika stood on Sakura's shoulder. That had been Kakashi's suggestion, to throw off the other teams, at least the ones from foreign nations. 

Finally, they entered room 301, and found that they weren't the first to get there. Sakura hadn't expected to be, of course, but she also hadn't expected it to be so packed with people. 

Still, she didn't linger in the doorway, gawking. That would be a dead giveaway that they were green as grass genin, which could possibly get them killed. Instead, she led her boys to three open chairs by a window, and settled in the middle one. 

Sasuke took the window seat, and Hotaru put her front paws on the desk and leaned on it, panting and wagging her tail happily. Naruto took the isle seat and kicked his feet up while Taiki sprawled underneath him. Chika hopped from Sakura's shoulder to sit on the table, and Sakura began petting her idly. 

"Tough looking crowd," Naruto said in a low but not quiet voice. 

Sasuke grunted. 

"Yeah," Sakura agreed, remembering everything Kakashi had taught them about not showing fear to the enemy. "Looks like, doesn't it?"

In a fit of inspiration, Sakura had packed a book into her kunai pouch on her hip, like Kakashi had. She thought that, if it made her dork of a teacher look like an aloof and unconcerned jonin, it might make her look aloof and unconcerned, too. Of course, she'd packed a whodunit novel from her mom's collection. It was an extra copy that her father had bought her mother for Christmas one year, and her mother had pretended to love it, even though she already had a copy. That had been before her mother got sick of her father's nonsense. 

She paid more attention to the teams trickling in than she did to her book, though. She hadn't read it yet, but she'd read some of her mom's books and they were all pretty similar, so she could still keep up with the plot. 

All of the teams that came in seemed to be older genin, and she noted that Gai's team came in not too long after her team had arrived. 

Team Eight arrived pretty late and, of course, Kiba started making a ruckus. Naruto had moved to get up, possibly to stop him or possibly to join him, but Sakura had bopped his knee with her book. He grumbled a little, but settled back again. 

Team Ten arrived, and Sakura saw the moment that Ino saw her, because she began to make a beeline for her, but right on her team's heels came a man wearing a long, black coat that seemed to be coated in something that was liquid repelling. 

"Sit down, maggots," the man said, and Ino's team thew themselves into the closest seats and gave the man their full attention. 

Sakura frowned. Ino respected this man, which meant she knew him. The likeliest possibility was that the man was part of T&I, which meant that he was probably either batshit crazy or the kind of shinobi that was capable of doing some pretty horrible things to another human being without going batshit crazy. 

"The first part of the Chuunin Exams will begin after I explain the rules to you," the man said, gravely. "But first, let me introduce myself. I am Ibiki Morino. I run Konoha's Torture and Intelligence Unit."

He paused, and Sakura glanced around to see her opponents expressions. Most were either disgusted, fearful, or pretending that they weren't disgusted or fearful. 

"You will be taking a test..."

Sakura listened to his instructions patiently, and gracefully moved to her newly assigned seat when instructed to. In the back of her mind, she was already formulating ways to make sure Naruto didn't fail without getting caught. He was smart, but he was horrible at written tests.

"You may begin."

Sakura flipped her paper over and immediately noted that there were only nine questions, not the ten he'd said they'd have to answer. 

No matter, she decided, and began working her way through the questions. They were tough questions for genin to answer, she had to admit, but she'd gotten though most of the theory books that were supposed to be for chuunin, so she figured she was fine. 

She was definitely worrying about Naruto now, though. Sasuke, it looked like, had his Sharingan activated, and was hiding it with his hair. Not the subtlest thing, but passable. Naruto, though, was napping. 

It took more effort than she'd care to admit to for her to bite down a huge, irritated sigh. 

Kakashi had taught them an old Hatake clan trick a while ago. He'd said that it wasn't a jutsu, but it was still a sort of open secret thing. He'd told them that the first generation of Hatake had developed it as a way to communicate quietly during wartime. Later, it was used to talk to their dogs subtly, because it sounded just like farmers clicking and whistling commands to working dogs. Kakashi had made sure they knew the clicking version first, and they were still learning the whistling version.

Shockingly, Naruto had learned it faster than Sakura, so when she started clicking her tongue to her mouth, he perked up and started listening right away. 

Sakura asked which version he had. 

He told her he had version B. 

She looked around, found someone with version B, though they were doing quite horribly, and began clicking out the answers as best she could in the very limited language. Still, it got the job done, and Naruto finished the second to last question right as Ibiki shoved his chair back to stand. 

"Time's up." Ibiki said. "Put your pencils down, or you'll be escorted out with the cheaters."

Sakura let out a breath of relief.

"It's time for the last question," Ibiki said, and most of the genin, including Sakura, leaned forward, ready to hear it so she could answer it. Then he said, "There's just one catch."

"Oh, jeez," Sakura heard from somewhere behind her. 

Ibiki walked around the teacher's desk and leaned on it without speaking for a moment. "The catch is, you get to choose to take this question. If you choose to answer, and answer incorrectly, you will fail and never be able to take the chuunin exams ever again."

Sakura immediately thought that that sounded extremely fishy. She'd never heard of a rule like that before, from anyone, and Naruto had never mentioned it either. If any of the three of them were to hear something like that, it would have been Naruto, and if he never heard of it, then it had to be fake. 

She wasn't the only one who didn't like the sound of that, as a good handful of genin shot out of their chairs to shout at him about how unfair his rule was. 

Ibiki shrugged. "I don't care what you think. You all have three minutes to decide."

Sakura ignored the several genin who left, along with their teams, and started clicking at her boys. Sasuke tilted his head towards her, and Naruto turned all the way around to look at her.

FAKE. She clicked. SAY NOTHING. TAKE QUESTION.

Sasuke nodded, and Naruto saluted before turning around again and sprawling on his chair and desk once more. 

By the end of the three minutes, at least a third of the other genin had left. Team Ten and Eight were still present, as was Team Gai, which only reassured Sakura that she was completely correct in her analysis of the situation.

"Time's up," Ibiki said. "Congratulations, you all pass the first part of the Chuunin Exams."

"That's it?" one of the genin from Sand, the girl with the blonde hair, said. "What the fuck was the point of all of that, huh?"

"The point," Ibiki said, turning his head to her slowly, "was to ensure that nobody who wasn't ready would move forward. A chuunin must be able to be subtle, and if you can't even cheat at a test in a classroom setting, you're not ready to be one."

"What was the point of the last question?" a genin from Rain asked. 

"I'm glad you asked," Ibiki said, and pulled off his bandanna. 

Sakura physically flinched back at the sight of the man's skull, which had several indentations and burn scars littered across shiny, bald skin. She's gotten hit by one of Sasuke's fire jutsu, and the burn had hurt horribly. She didn't want to imagine how it felt to have a burn for so long that a medic couldn't heal it like Sasuke had healed hers.

"Sometimes," Ibiki said, "you don't come back from missions. Sometimes you get lucky, and someone's sent to retrieve you. I got lucky. I wouldn't have been in the situation I was if I hadn't taken the mission I did."

He paused, and put the bandanna back on.

"But if I hadn't taken that mission, my village wouldn't have gotten the vital information that I acquired that ended up preventing hundreds of civilian deaths. Each mission is a risk that you might not come back from. If you're not prepared to die in service to your village, you're not ready to be a chuunin."

Nobody spoke for a long moment. 

Sakura had to admit, that was a really effective way to beat a very important point into the thick skulls of idiot genin.

The somber moment was interrupted by someone leaping through the glass windows. The figure landed in front of Ibiki and let out a shout of triumph. 

"Hello, brats," the figure- a woman, Sakura realized once she got her bearings back- "I'm Anko Mitarashi and I'm the proctor for the second part of the chuunin exams!"


	6. Naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> soooo my bad, this is super late! classes started up so things got a little wild. shit's gonna pick up after this next chapter, and gonna get super duper au the chapter after that.

Naruto stared at the woman in front of him, speechless.

Weeks ago, Kakashi-sensei had, during their one-on-one day, brought him to training ground Forty-Four, which was home to an extremely creepy forest. He had said that he was still going to teach Naruto and Hotaru that day, but that he wanted to introduce him to someone who was real similar to him because he might be able to get some good advice out of her. 

Naruto had been pretty eager to meet this lady until he realized that Kakashi-sensei wanted to bring him into the super creepy, deadly-looking forest. 

"If anything tries to attack us, I'll set it on fire," Hotaru said.

"Maybe the whole thing will burn down, then," Naruto said. 

"Don't get your hopes up," Kakashi said idly. "Plenty of people have tried and nobody has succeeded. Give it a try if you want to, though. Nobody will blame you. Come along, now."

So Naruto followed him into the forest reluctantly, making sure to keep one hand on Hotaru's scruff and both eyes on Kakashi-sensei, just in case he tried to play a trick on them by vanishing. 

Luckily, they didn't have to go very far into the forest. Kakashi-sensei stopped them at a small grove, and introduced him to a woman with purple hair and very few actual clothes. Naruto averted his eyes out of respect, and because Sakura-chan would kill him if she knew he had been looking at some lady's breasts. 

"Naruto, this is-"

"Don't tell him my name!" the woman snapped. "Remember, I'm not actually doing this. I want none of this to come back on me, you got it?"

"Sorry, sorry," Kakashi said. "Okay, Naruto, this is the shinobi I told you about. She's better at infiltration than she looks, and you should have some conversations with her. But she's not allowed to teach anyone, so it has to only be conversations, understand?"

Naruto understood, and so hunted her down about once a week or so to talk to her. She never told him her name, but she told him plenty of stories of 'someone' sneaking around in places. He was dense, but not dense enough to not understand that she was telling him stories about her missions that she'd done, and what went wrong and how to avoid them. 

She wasn't teaching, but he was learning. 

So, upon seeing her burst into the room and learning her name for the first time since he met her ages ago, he desperately wanted to shout, "Ah-ha! I finally know your name!" but he knew that it would be a bad idea, so he sat quietly instead, and followed after her with his team when instructed to. 

"Are you okay?" Sakura asked, worry in her eyes.

"Yeah, don't worry," Naruto told her. "I'll explain later. It's not anything bad, I promise."

The woman- Anko, he corrected  himself- was standing on top of a small, temporary building, and put her pinky fingers into her mouth. 

Naruto said, sealing his hands over his ears, "Oh, shit, cover your ears."

Sakura, Hotaru, and Taiki covered their ears. Sasuke covered Chika's and grimaced in preparation. Naruto pitied him. 

Anko whistled loud and sharply enough that Naruto still winced, even though his ears were covered as best he could get them covered. Sakura cursed, and a little ways in front of them, Naruto saw Kiba and Akamaru jump about a foot in the air. 

"Now that I have your attention," Anko said. "This is training ground forty-four, also known as the Forest of Death. The second half of the chuunin exam will happen in this forest. Also, you'll all have to sign waivers, so if you die, I don't get in trouble."

Naruto let out a nervous chuckle. He knew just how serious she was. She'd told him enough horror stories about this place that he didn't want to enter at all. 

"You will be given one scroll," Anko continued, "your goal is to get a second scroll that does not match your first one. Your team will receive a scroll when you submit all three waivers to the people in the stand under me."

A chuunin began handing out the waivers, and Naruto reluctantly filled his out while ignoring the concerned glances both Sakura and Sasuke were throwing his way. Sakura took all three of their waivers, headed in, and emerged moments later with a scroll labelled "Heaven."

"The other scroll is called 'Earth,' just so you know," Sakura said. "And we're supposed to go in through entrance seven. I think they made it all correspond, because I heard them tell Shino to go to entrance eight."

"Let's go," Naruto said, putting some pep he really did not feel into his voice and giving his team a big grin. "We're going to ace this! Right, Hotaru?"

Hotaru barked, wagging her tail. Only the three of them knew it was a stressed and grumpy tail-wag and not a happy tail-wag, because Kiba's team had already left for their entrance. 

"Okay, spill," Sakura ordered once they arrived at entrance seven.

Naruto groaned. "Okay, so you know how I've been wandering out every once in a while? Well, that was so I could learn from someone who isn't supposed to teach because of some dumb reason. That person was Anko, and she's fucking insane, and this forest is designed to kill people."

"Oh," Sakura said.

"Designed to kill people?" Sasuke asked, skeptical.

"Yeah!" Naruto said, louder than he meant to. He toned himself down. "Yeah, like, you know the First Hokage had that plant thing, right? So like, when Konoha had first been founded, people hated the whole like, concept? So the village getting attacked left and right, bam-bam-bam!"

"Naruto," Sakura said. 

"Right, so the First got real pissed off one time, and was like, 'okay, fuck you guys,' and grew the Forest of Death around a group of enemy combatants. And they died. And the First left the Forest of Death up as like, a warning."

Sakura squinted at him. "Have you been in here?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, making a face, "But only once. It's fuckin' spooky in there, okay? Kakashi-sensei had to stop me from getting eaten by like three separate things, y'know!"

"I set a big leech on fire!" Hotaru said.

A whistle sounded before either of his teammates could reply, and all three of them darted into the forest before the gates closed. They might not want to be there, but they wanted even less to fail the chuunin exams by being chickenshits, Naruto knew.

"Strategies," Sakura said, "Hit me."

"Head directly to the tower, take out a team on our way," Naruto said. "We don't want to get stuck somewhere, injured, out in the middle of this hellhole, y'know? If we get hurt and Sasuke can't fix us, we want to be close to like, better medics, right? And I mean, if we can't take a team out on our way, we can just wait and take out a team that's like, super tired."

"Yes," Sasuke said. 

All three dogs nodded their agreement, and Sakura said, "Alright then, let's head out. Stick close!"

Naruto lost track of time while they were in the forest. It was mostly just jumping through trees at speeds he would have thought impossible months ago and catching Taiki when he stumbled because he still hadn't quite gotten up the chakra control to stick properly. Naruto very much understood how he felt. 

"I smell Team Eight," Sakura said. "We should leave them alone, right?"

"I wanted to fight Kiba," Naruto protested. 

Sakura shook her head. "It's not worth it, Naruto. Let's move on. I think I smell those Rain genin. They looked like genjutsu specialists, so we shouldn't have too much problem with them."

Naruto conceded. Between Sakura's nose, his weird specialty in visual genjutsu, and Sasuke's eyes, they were good to go against just about any genjutsu. 

.

They stopped in the trees above the rain genin to silently work out a plan of attack. After a bit of arguing, it was decided that Sasuke was going to hang back and use his eyes to break any genjutsu from a distance while Sakura and Naruto dropped down and kicked ass. 

It was actually kind of odd, Naruto thought while he and Sakura wove together to take down the three rain genin as quickly as they could. Sasuke had stopped minding hanging back a while ago. He hadn't been pissy about being left out of a fight since like, Wave.

The fight was over quickly- Naruto had no idea whose idea it was to send a genjutsu-only team into the chuunin exams, but hey, it got them a pretty easy scroll, so he wasn't going to complain. The first of the three was holding it, and he stowed it away in an inner pocket of his jacket immediately. It would be bad if they were interrupted and he didn't get a chance to nab it. 

As Sakura was patting her hands in satisfaction and Naruto was rifling through the last of the Rain genins' pockets, they both heard a very angry bark and a very angry shout. 

"Oh, fuck," Naruto said, and bolted for Sasuke. 

Sakura was right in front of him, and reached Sasuke just before he did. One of the older genin, from Grass, had one very long tongue wrapped around Sasuke's arm, and Sakura was just quick enough to sink a kunai into it. 

The grass genin shrieked and their grip on Sasuke (with their tongue) loosened just enough for Sasuke to peel himself away (from their tongue). He jumped back and then behind Naruto, which put him just out of the Grass Genin's (tongue's) reach.

"He wants my eyes," Sasuke said lowly. 

"He wanted to bite you," Chika snapped. "His teeth smelled like chakra. He didn't just want your eyes, he wanted your blood."

Naruto knew it had to be really bad if Chika was talking out loud, and so he splayed one hand out and armed himself with a kunai. This freak would have to go through him to get to Sasuke. 

Sakura clicked her tongue once, softly, in the back of her throat. In the Hatake dog-training clicking language, it was just about the quietest noise you could make, and for good reason. It meant:

Run now.

Both Naruto and Sasuke turned and bolted as fast as they could, boosting their speed with chakra the way Kakashi had taught them and then firmly told them to only do in dire circumstances unless they wanted to fuck their legs up beyond repair. S

Sakura was right behind them, caught up quickly, and was soon leading them once more. After a second, Naruto realized that they were running for the outer gate. 

"Proctors!" she shouted, "Orochimaru is in the forest! I repeat, Orochimaru is in the forest!"

Naruto didn't know what was happening, or how an S-rank missing nin was in the village, but he knew that that wouldn't do it. He'd spent enough time listening to older shinobi bitch about dumb genin not knowing the proper codes that he'd learned them out of spite. 

"Code Alpha-Red!" Naruto shouted. "I'm not fucking kidding, guys, he's really here!"

Four ANBU swept out of nowhere, and darted past them. The last one slowed down enough to silently, in sign, order them to head away briefly, and then continue the exam. 

Sakura led them just a little further, then slowed down to a speed that wasn't aided by chakra, and led them at that pace for a while longer, until the sounds of fighting was distant enough that they didn't need to worry about stray weapons or jutsu. 

"Hey, Sasuke? Sakura-chan?" Naruto panted. "What the hell happened back there?"

Chika barked. 

"Like I said," Sasuke said, "That freak wanted my eyes. He said so. Then, like Chika said, he tried to bite me. I don't know anything else."

"He smelled like snakes and ink and decay," Sakura said. "I've done a lot of research, and only one clan was able to do that weird tongue thing, and that was Orochimaru's. I don't know why, and I'm sure I don't want to, but he wants you, Sasuke."

"My eyes," Sasuke said again. "I just said he wanted my eyes."

"Cause you're one of like, three people that still has it," Naruto realized, "And the other two are really strong and you're not."

Sasuke gives him a withering look. Naruto reviews what he just said. 

"Wait-!" Naruto smacks his forehead. "I don't mean that you're weak, y'know? Just that Kakashi-sensei and your crazy brother are way stronger. So you're like, an easier target. That's all."

"Anyway," Sakura says loudly. "We need to get to the tower, ASAP. Naruto, you have the scroll, right?"

Naruto nodded. "It's even the right one. Let's have a snack first, cause that was real tiring, and then we should go."

He didn't wait for Sakura or Sasuke to argue, and instead pulled out the ration bars Tsubaki had taught him how to make. It was a real good thing she did, too, cause the first time he'd tasted the regulation ones he'd almost spat it out. They weren't even bland, they were gross! Tsubaki had heard him complaining, and offered to teach him a recipe she'd learned when she wanted to be a shinobi. 

"Oh," Sasuke said. "These are good."

Naruto beamed. "Sakura's mom taught me how to make them! They've got all kinds of good shit in them, like cranberries and protien powder and-"

"Talk later," Sakura said with her mouth full. "Eat now."

They ate, and Naruto gave the dogs some water from the pop-up bowl he'd found at the pet store a while back and then insisted that Sakura and Sasuke drink some water. Sasuke agreed without protest, actually, and helped him gang up on Sakura to make her drink water.

She gave in eventually, and then they were off once more, towards the tower.

.

They arrived at the tower, and just before they went in, Sasuke stopped them.

"We don't know what's next," he said. "What if the next test is right away? Let me heal you."

Naruto submitted easily to a check-up, and was found to be healthy as ever. Hotaru was too, though she had some small cuts on her paws that Sasuke healed up with just a touch of chakra. Taiki and Chika were uninjured, and, after a small fuss, Sakura was found to have a mildly twisted ankle.

"You were running on this," Sasuke said.

"Yeah," Sakura said slowly, as if he were an idiot, "We had to get out of there. I hardly even felt it."

Sasuke glared at her. "If you had let this go untreated much longer, your ankle might have gotten fucked up for good. We had time to heal it earlier. Next time, tell me."

She huffed, but Sasuke kept a grip on her ankle and glared at her until she agreed. Naruto figured she was probably lying, but also that Sasuke knew that. Still, he let her ankle go, and motioned for her to lead them into the tower. 

"A riddle?" Sakura asked, looking at the board above them.

All of them, even the dogs, stared at the board on the wall for a long, silent moment. Sakura mouthed the words to herself, and Sasuke just stared silently. 

It occurred to Naruto after a minute, that this was very, very cliche. He could swear he'd seen an episode just like this on at least three different shows that he watched at night before he went to bed. The TV that Kakashi-sensei had installed in the living room was Naruto's new favorite thing, actually, 'cause the shows were easier to follow than novels, but still really fun and cool. They totally got ninja life wrong, but that was okay. It was easier for civilians to be nice to shinobi when it was all sweetened up, he figured. 

"There's words missing," Naruto said. "Ten ryou the words match the names of our scrolls. That's how this works on TV at least."

"This isn't TV," Sasuke said. 

"No, it isn't," Sakura agreed, "And you shouldn't watch so much. It'll rot your brain. But... I think he's right."

Naruto handed over the scroll he'd been holding and Sakura took it and held it next to the one they'd been given at the start of all of this. 

Nothing happened.

"We should open them," Naruto said. 

Sakura gave him a tired glare. "She said not to open them. So we shouldn't open them."

"Okay, but like," Naruto said, then paused to think of the right words. "You know how Kakashi-sensei says 'those who disobey the rules are trash but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash' or however it goes? I think we're supposed to open it because we were told not to, cause what if we have a mission where we're not supposed to do something, but it turns out that, to complete the mission, we gotta do the thing we're not supposed to?"

"A judgement call," Sasuke said. "They want us capable of making appropriate judgement calls."

Sakura slapped her forehead. "Okay, that makes sense. Here, Sasuke, you do it."

Sasuke grunted and grumbled something about putting the medic in danger, yada yada, whatever. Naruto didn't really listen when Sasuke got to grumbling like that. 

"C'mon, don't be a chicken," Naruto goaded. 

Sasuke snapped his head around to glare at Naruto, then opened the two scrolls with a flourish. A puff of smoke hid Naruto's smug grin- they might not be direct rivals anymore, but Sasuke never backed down from a challenge like that.

"Hey," a familiar voice said, "Long time no see."

"IRUKA-SENSEI!" Naruto launched himself at him immediately. "I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN SO LONG!"

"Volume!" Sakura yelped, her hands over her ears. 

"Sorry, sorry," Naruto said, quieter. "Holy shit, Iruka-sensei you would not believe the shit we've dealt with today! Also I'm still kinda mad at you for skipping out on ramen last week, by the way, but anyway, holy shit Orochimaru was in the forest but we called the ANBU on him and escaped without getting bit by his weird biting seal thingy and-"

"Whoa," Iruka said. "Start over. Tell me everything."

Naruto did. 

"Wow," Iruka said. "Well, I guess it's being handled. Um, let me tell you what I'm supposed to about this part of the exam, and then I'll bring you inside. You're here rather early, you know. It's only the first day. Of course, you're the third team here, but still! That's very impressive, especially considering what you've gone through."

Iruka then explained what the board behind him meant. Naruto kinda got it, but thought it was a really convoluted way of telling them to round their skills out better. Then, after he was done, he ushered them upstairs, where there were several rooms. Each had three beds, a tiny attached bathroom, and a microwave. He also told them that there was a cafeteria, but they could just grab food there and take it back to their rooms to eat. 

"Most teams are pretty paranoid after the forest," Iruka admitted. "So we try to make things easier on you guys. You're going to be stuck here until this part of the exam is over completely, and the medical team is only for emergencies."

By the time he'd made sure they were settled, it was nearing midnight, and all three of them were flagging. He said goodnight to all of them, and ruffled Naruto's hair to his delight, and then left, shutting their door behind him. 

Sasuke sluggishly got up, locked the door, and then rejoined Sakura and Naruto on the bed. "We need to rest. I'll heal you more in the morning, Sakura."

"Hey!" Naruto protested. "What about me?"

"You heal fast," Sasuke retorted, then softened just a smidge. "If you need healing, I'll heal you too. Now, go the fuck to sleep."

Sakura laughed softly, and pulled both of the boys down. Their dogs hopped into bed as soon as they were settled, and wormed their way into where they usually slept- Chika in the crook of Sasuke's shoulder, Hotaru across Sakura and Sasuke's lap, and Taiki on Naruto's feet. 

.

The rest of the week passed quickly. The three of them took turns going to the cafeteria to collect food with Taiki and Hotaru as back up. Aside from that, none of them left their tiny suite and had to find ways to occupy themselves so they didn't go insane. 

Sasuke took his time healing both Sakura and Naruto fully, taking breaks as he needed them. His reserves were very large, but his chakra control still needed work and focusing for too long was horribly exhausting. After he was done with that, however, he turned to chakra control exercises. 

Sakura spent her time- once Sasuke cleared her for more intense work outs- going through her katas and and trying to use as much of her chakra as she could, to improve her reserves. Once, she tried to do both at once, and Sasuke and Naruto both agreed that she was banned from that because the room was too small for a fire to start in it. 

Naruto, to both his teammates and his own surprise, began reading. 

He'd had several books and scrolls tucked away in his pack for ages, to read them when he had time. Most of them were instructional scrolls on sealing, by Kakashi's insistence. The rest were history books, which he'd slowly collected while disguised as other people. He'd learned the hard way that asking for books relating to the Uzumakis would get him kicked out if he were, well, himself. 

But asking as, say, Iruka-sensei, got him comments like, "Oh, looking up more sealing stuff? I thought you'd read all of that already."

Asking as Kakashi got him no comments, but really sad looks that he still didn't understand. 

He went as Team Eight's teacher, and Team Ten's and as a couple of other academy teachers, and as random shinobi he saw on the streets. each time, he got more information, and not always from books. 

The books helped, so he read. 

He learned that the Uzumaki clan was known for their seals, and most were redheaded, and that they had been seen as extremely dangerous for many reasons when they were still around. He learned that they were kind, that they adopted people easily, that they had nearly the same sort of obsession with people that the Uchiha did. He learned so much, but it never felt like enough. 

All of what he'd learned had been spread out between a dozen books and scrolls, which sucked. The silver lining, he supposed, was that he was learning all kinds of political stuff that would be useful for when he was Hokage, plus all of the cool seals that he could use to survive being a shinobi.

He was still reading when, at noon on the fifth day of the exam, a voice came on over the loudspeaker asking that all participants enter the large hall at the base of the building. Naruto helped Sakura pack up their stuff while Sasuke put away his healer's kit before setting off. 

Most of the rest of the genin in the large hall were battered and beaten, and Naruto was really shocked to realize that Team Seven was probably one of the freshest teams there. He also noticed, however, that there was very close to half of the participants that had gone into the forest, which meant that probably too many people had passed this part of the exam.  

Naruto was suddenly very grateful that they'd rushed through the forest so quickly, even though it had been because a crazy S-ranked missing nin really wanted to bite Sasuke. Silver linings, right?

He didn't pay a lot of attention to the fights. He cheered on his friends and kept track of the winners and their strategies because even he knew that the Chuunin exam had three parts and that the last part was a big tournament so they could show off to civilians. 

He did pay attention to his own team's fights, however. 

Sasuke won against his opponent because even someone who could sap chakra couldn't fight if his achilles tendon was cut. Not to mention that Sasuke could dodge every single one of his opponent's moves because of his eyes.

Sakura won against Ino because she'd been been practicing hard core with a taijutsu expert and somehow Ino, the daughter of the head of T&I hadn't known and decided that a fistfight was the way to win that match.

Naruto, when he saw Kiba was his opponent, muttered an apology to Sakura and Kakashi and told them to plug their noses. Kiba and Akamaru were very easy to knock out after he dropped a stink bomb seal.

"It's been a long time since a full team has passed to the finals," Kakashi told them on their way home.  "I'll be training you each separately, and for this next month you get a pass on team training, since you'll be going up against each other. The usual schedule will work, I think."

Naruto had no idea how he was going to beat his teammates, but he knew exactly how he was going to beat that asshole Neji. 


	7. Sasuke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes yall, sorry this was late! Next chapter should be oct 11, and it's gonna be a doozy.

Sasuke was so fucking tired. 

It had taken a full week to get his training at the hospital slowed down so that he could dedicate more of his time to preparing for the tournament. Most of it had been paperwork asking for time off, and now Sasuke fully understood why none of the doctors took any vacations: doing the paperwork for off time just wan't worth it. 

But he managed it and spent every available second of his remaining three weeks to prepare to fight the absolute monstrosity that was Gaara of the Sand. 

The kid could control sand, had the sand function as an armor and a weapon, and took basically no damage even when that insane Rock Lee- who was a terrible patient and drove Sasuke up a wall during the brief period he was assigned to be his nurse- really went for it. Sasuke had heard of Lee in passing from Sakura, and knew that his training was absolutely no joke and that Lee would absolutely have gone into the third exam if he hadn't gotten extremely unlucky.

So, Sasuke's plan was to wheedle as many lightning jutsu out of Kakashi as he could manage, in hopes that the sand would function like the ground and let the lightning shatter the hell out of it. 

Kakashi had agreed readily, to Sasuke's surprise, and even offered to teach him some tricks he knew the Sharingan could do, which Sasuke absolutely snapped up as if his life depended on it. He wasn't stupid: he might still be a little angry that someone had given an outsider one of his clan's eyes, but since Kakashi was the last loyal Konoha shinobi who knew how to use it, he had decided to douse his anger, at least for now. Maybe one day he'd scream and shout about how it's a betrayal to his clan or something, but until then, he was going to learn how to use his eyes. 

Especially because his life might actually depend on it.

Gaara was going to be a horrible enemy to fight, Sasuke knew, and yet he also knew that he couldn't bow out. His pride might have waned quite a lot in the past year, but he'd look like an absolute coward if he ran from this fight, and he needed to move up in ranks to be allowed to learn more healing techniques. 

He stopped mid kata at that thought. Since when had he become more concerned about learning healing than about getting powerful enough to kill Him?

A pea bounced off of his head and he looked up to scowl at Naruto from across the room. 

"You froze up," Naruto explained, his mouth somehow already full of breakfast food. "You okay? I've got time to talk if you need to- it's Sakura's day with Kaka-sensei today."

"I'm fine," Sasuke said, meaning it.

Naruto shrugged and went back to his breakfast. Sasuke was pretty sure he'd never know how Naruto knew when someone was lying about their feelings, but so far the idiot hadn't been wrong once.

"Want to spar later?" 

Naruto looked up at him with a surprised tilt to his smile. "Sure! Just the regular stuff, right? No spoilers for the tournament next week?"

Sasuke found himself just as surprised as Naruto. He hadn't meant to offer anything, but since he already had, he found that he very, very much wanted to. And not even as a test of his abilities or whatever he would have said last year, but because sparring against Naruto was, dare he say it.... 

Fun. 

.

Naruto collapsed on the ground next to Sasuke. 

Sasuke, for his part, had been laying in the grass for the better part of an hour, having exhausted himself during the third round of their spar, and not having the mental energy to get up and leave. 

He would probably never say it out loud, but Naruto's presence made just about anything better. 

"So," Naruto said, somehow still energetic enough to talk after blowing through all of usual old moves at least twice each, "do you think you're gonna be able to beat Gaara?"

Sasuke huffed. 

"Not that I think you're weak!" Naruto backpedaled, "but like, he's, uh..."

"Yeah, I know," Sasuke said. 

He could feel Naruto silently counting to twenty before he pressed the issue again. "So, do you?"

"...No."

Naruto sighed and Sasuke bit back one of his own. 

"Do you..." Sasuke said, then stopped. 

"Do I what?" Naruto asked. 

Sasuke grumbled a bit, then tried again, "Do you have any suggestions for beating him? His sand feels like your prisoner, a little bit. Maybe it's similar."

Naruto let out a thoughtful noise. "Well, the only thing I can think of is like, maybe your eyes? I haven't talked to him much, but my prisoner seems to really, really hate you and your eyes."

Sasuke sat up. "You talked to it?"

Naruto groaned. "Ugh, fuck, I didn't mean to- yeah, I talked to him. It was an accident, I was going to sleep and I thought about him a little too hard, and then I was standing in this like, big prison area? There were huge bars, like as tall as a building huge! And the whole ground was flooded just enough that my feet were wet, which you know I don't mind, but it felt really yucky, like the water was a little slimy?"

"Naruto, the point," Sasuke said. 

"Right, right, the point is, I got to talking with him- just the once, I swear!- and he started like, talking shit on you and Sakura, calling her mean names like 'mutt' and 'useless' and called you- well, okay that one's not- he really started rambling about you and your eyes and how you'd betray me and rip him out of my gut? I don't know. He seems really scared of your eyes, so I think that if you can like, figure out what that means, you'll have a, uh, like, leg up on Gaara."

Sasuke took a moment to process Naruto's rambling explanation. Once he'd parsed it, he decided that Kakashi might know what Naruto meant, and that he was going to ask him about it first thing during his day with Kakashi.

"...Thanks."

Naruto beamed at him. "Yeah, no problem. Anything to help my teammates, y'know!"

Sasuke laid back down and tried very hard to ignore the hammering of his heart against his ribcage and the foreign warmth that had spread up his throat and across his chest when Naruto had turned his blazing smile towards him and him alone. 

That was a problem for another day.

.

Kakashi didn't have much for him, just a cryptic one-liner about hopefully never figuring it out, which had sent Sasuke into one of his increasingly rare rages until Kakashi explained further. 

Sasuke had never had a rage doused so fast before.

"I hope you never find out how to do that kind of thing," Kakashi had said slowly, "because you'll need to, as you kids say, level up that eye of yours, first. The only way to do that is to experience the loss of your Person."

Sasuke hadn't inquired further.

.

The day of the tournament would have been Sasuke's day to train with Kakashi. He'd even offered a last minute training session, though Sasuke had turned it down. He'd been lectured plenty enough about getting enough rest before missions he knew would be strenuous, and he didn't want to think of his teachers at the hospital's expressions should they ever learn that he'd been training hours before he knew for certain that he would have a big fight. 

Naruto was the one to wake both him and Sakura and their dogs. Hotaru was by the door, snickering at them while Naruto shook first Sasuke and Chika and then Sakura and Taiki. Sasuke bit back his own laugh when Naruto only just barely dodged the swipe Sakura aimed at his head. 

"Come on, come on," Naruto chanted, "Up, up, up! Your mom cooked breakfast and today's the day! I'm gonna kick Neji's ass for what he did to his cousin, and you're gonna kick that Sand girl's ass and then Shikamaru's ass, and Sasuke will kick Gaara's ass and then I'll kick Sasuke's ass and then Sakura will kick my ass!"

"My, that's a lot of ass kicking," Kakashi said from the doorway. 

Sasuke shook his head while Naruto puffed up and insisted that their team was going to kick everyone's asses and they'd all be chuunin then. 

"That's not how promotion works," Sakura moaned, tugging at her hair in frustration. "That's not how any of this works!"

"Let him believe for now," Sasuke said, patting her back gingerly before leaving for his own room to get changed. 

Sakura and Naruto had gotten into a screaming match a few weeks ago that had ended up with all three of them going shopping for new outfits. Sasuke had mostly managed to blot out that horrifying adventure, but he was pleased with what he had ended up with, and at least satisfied with what Sakura and Naruto had ended up with. 

Naruto had tried very, very hard to convince Sakura and Sasuke to let him have another orange jumpsuit, and had been viciously discouraged. Instead, Sakura had talked him into orange accents only, somehow, and Sasuke had been the one to find a green bomber jacket with an orange lining that satisfied both his and Sakura's practicality and Naruto's love of such a godawful color. 

Sakura found a red, sleeveless shirt that she had, overnight, embroidered with the Hatake clan symbol, and paired it with protective mesh leggings and high-waisted black shorts. Naruto had handed her a pair of red sandals, and she'd been surprisingly pleased with how that looked, and bought those as well. 

For his part, he'd gone a simple route, and merely bought new pants with plenty of pockets. Naruto had given him some shit for picking even more black clothes, but he was long past the point of Naruto's teasing bothering him at all. He'd also gone through one of the Uchiha storage buildings, which all had preservation seals on them to prevent the items inside from deteriorating, and found some shirts in the traditional Uchiha style. 

He emerged from his room shortly after, and waited in the kitchen for his teammates. Tsubaki put him to work chopping vegetables for their bentos. It was soothing, if he were honest. He wasn't exactly nervous about the exam, but he also wasn't as relaxed as he was pretending to be about it. 

The bentos were done quickly, and when he turned around to go to the table and eat breakfast, Naruto and Sakura were already there. 

"You've got some sauce on your jacket," Sasuke told Naruto, pointing to the drippings. 

"Aw, hell," Naruto muttered and wiped it off. "Good thing it's waterproof, yknow? Anyway, you ready?"

Sasuke huffed and tucked into his breakfast, not deigning to answer such a stupid question. Sasuke Uchiha? Not ready to beat his opponents in a silly exam?

Perhaps more likely than one would think, but he absolutely wasn't going to say that out loud, ever.

.

Sasuke was putting more effort into ignoring the crowds above them than he would ever admit. They were shinobi for heaven's sake! Of course none of them would enjoy being watched while they battle. 

"The first match will be Naruto Uzumaki versus Neji Hyuuga," the proctor announced. "All other contestants, please move to the participant's box."

Sasuke more hated that he wasn't in the arena with his teammates, though he knew Naruto and Hotaru would do just fine against their arrogant prick of an opponent. Even at his worst, Sasuke knew he hadn't been that irritating. 

Sakura leaned on him once they were up in the participent's box, and both of them ignored the curious look from the girl from Sand and the calculating looks from Shikamaru and Shino. 

"Too bad that one kid dropped out of the tournament," Sakura said, "I think he might have been fun for you to fight. Puppet users are known for poisons, right? You need some practice with poisons."

"Hm," Sasuke replied. She wasn't wrong- he did need more practice with poisons, but there was no way he wanted to put himself in the position of trying to cure himself of poison while fighting when he wasn't even very good at curing a fish of poison. 

Down below, Naruto was creating wave after wave of Shadow Clones of both him and Hotaru, to keep the Hyuuga asshole guessing. It was a good strategy, Sasuke admitted, though not as useful as it could have been on someone who didn't have a doujutsu that could see chakra. 

Still, it seemed to confuse the Hyuuga asshole enough that Naruto and Hotaru were able to disappear to somewhere. 

"Underground," Sasuke said to Sakura. 

She shook her head. "Transformed into something weird. You know how good he is at those."

Sasuke conceded, and moments later, Naruto and Hotaru reappeared as themselves- they had been hidden as debris from the Hyuuga's weird chakra spinning attack. Naruto decked the Hyuuga asshole in the jaw (Sasuke hoped he reinforced that fist with chakra or else he'd have to heal it) and Hotaru clamped her teeth down on his leg (Sasuke hoped she reinforced her teeth, or he'd be helping her regrow new ones).

To his credit, the Hyuuga asshole didn't let out any noise of pain, and instead retaliated with closing up some of Naruto's tenketsu. 

Sasuke snorted. 

"Yeah, cause that'll work," Sakura agreed. "You think he'll force them back open with...?"

"No doubt," Sasuke replied, "The real question is whether or not he'll need to heal his chakra pathways afterwards."

Sakura laughed. "Oh, is that what he was asking you for the other day? Please tell me he botched doing it to himself, please."

Sasuke nodded, and Sakura burst into peals of laughter. There was that horrible lightness in his sternum again, and he turned away to look down at the battle instead of letting his gaze soften on Sakura and her soft pink hair and her sweet laugh and- 

He shook himself internally. Now was not the time to obsess about one of his People. His other Person was in the middle of a battle, after all. That thought successfully redirected his thoughts and attention to Naruto, who was standing over Neji and panting heavily. 

Sasuke activated his Sharingan to read his teammate's lips. 

"You're so fucking stupid," Naruto said to Neji. 

"What's he saying?" Sakura asked. 

Sasuke echoed Naruto's words as best he could without being able to hear his tone, "You're so stupid. You think it's destiny that you're stronger than Hinata? You thought it was destiny that made you stronger than me? Newsflash, asshole, I just kicked your ass. Surprise! Destiny lied to you."

"Oh, he's going hard today," Sakura murmured.

"You're strong because you practiced and trained. Who trains Hinata? Last I heard, she'd been tossed aside for her baby sister. Oh, is that not news to you? God, I hate people like you. Grow the fuck up, man. I don't know what your deal is, but don't take it out on people who obviously admire you. Maybe instead of trying to do everything alone, you ask for some help! Maybe other people would be willing to help you, in return! Idiot!"

The proctor, seeing that Neji wasn't going to get up, announced, "Naruto Uzumaki has won the first match!"

The crowd began cheering and whistling and clapping. Sakura screamed joyfully, and Taiki and Chika howled with her. In the crowds, somewhere, Sasuke heard more familiar howls- Kakashi had summoned his pack to watch them. 

Neji was carried away in a stretcher, and Naruto rejoined them in the participant's box. They had a few minutes to talk while the clean up crews fixed up the arena from Neji and Naruto's mess. 

"I told you I'd kick his ass!" Naruto crowed, half-carrying Hotaru, who was licking his face excitedly, "Holy shit, though, it was kinda close there for a minute! I wasn't expecting that weird spinny thing, that's for sure!"

"You did great!" Sakura said, grabbing him and pulling him in for a hug. "That was amazing! I was worried you'd be lost without me at your back, but you did incredible!"

"Nah, Sakura-chan, just cause we're better as a team than alone don't mean I'm not great when it's just me and Hotaru, y'know!" Naruto protested, but hugged her back all the same, "Jeez, that was fun, though! Can't wait to kick Sasuke's ass so you can kick mine!"

"She's not going to get a chance to kick your ass today," Sasuke said.

Sakura pulled back, laughing and fanning herself jokingly, "Oh, boys, don't fight over me, now. I have a foot for each of your asses!"

"Who are you people and what have you done with Team Seven?" Shikamaru muttered, probably to himself. 

Sasuke looked at him, and smirked. "We improved."

"Yeah, Shikamaru," Naruto crowed, "We got fuckin' killer over here. Kakashi-sensei's a real good teacher, and he's made us into kick-ass shinobi. What've you been doing? Sleeping? Playing go?"

Shikamaru sighed heavily. 

Naruto snickered. "That's a yes."

"The next match," the proctor announced, "Will begin shortly. Sakura Hatake versus Temari of the Sand. Contestants, please enter the arena."

"That's my cue," Sakura said, and turned towards the railing to hop down into the arena.

The Sand girl was already perched on it, and smirked. "Too slow, fresh meat. If that's your reaction time, this is going to be an easy fight."

She jumped off of the rail and rode her fan down to the ground gracefully before looking back up at the contestant's box with the kind of smug expression that reminded Sasuke of his worst cousins, before they were murdered.

Sakura growled. 

Sasuke tensed briefly, and Naruto took three steps away from Sakura. Sakura, for her part, only recoiled briefly at her slip of composure before grinning widely and holding a hand out to Naruto. 

"Change of plans, boys," she said, "Naruto, can I have a few explosive seals, please?"

"Uh," Naruto said, and fished some out of his pouch and handed them to her, "Sure..."

"No, no," Sakura said, pressing the ones he'd given her back into his hands. "Not these ones. The big ones that you told Kakashi you only made three of but that we all know you have at least a dozen of."

Naruto clutched his pouch to his body. "Sakura-chan, those are for emergencies!"

"Just one," she wheedled. 

The proctor shouted, "Sakura Hatake, please come down to the arena, or you will forfeit the match."

Naruto whined, but shoved one into her hands.

She kissed him on the cheek and threw herself over the rail, landing nimbly on the other side of the proctor from the Sand girl and grinned cheekily. Taiki yelped and followed not a second later. 

"Sorry I'm late," she said, "I lost my hair tie and had to find it."

Naruto turned to Sasuke and stared at him in horror. "Oh, no, it's hereditary. I can't deal with both of them being late all the time!"

Sasuke grimaced. 

"Begin," the proctor said before the Sand girl could retaliate with some sort of quip. 

Sasuke blinked and missed Sakura punching the Sand girl in the sternum. Taiki was snarling, an ugly sound that had genuinely frightened Naruto the first time he'd heard it, and lunging at the Sand girl, startling her and making her move away from him. 

Right into Sakura's foot, coming in for a kick. 

"Oh, fuck, she's not playing around today, is she?" Naruto said, leaning forward, his horror forgotten. "Damn, get her, Sakura-chan! Yeah, Taiki, bite her!"

Naruto was right, Sasuke mused, gleefully impressed with Sakura's viciousness. When she sparred with the two of them, she liked to play around first before getting speedy and mean. The Sand girl was having a lot of trouble even dodging Sakura's blows. It made Sasuke's vindictive heart sing. 

The Sand girl recovered finally, and cracked open her giant fan. With one sweep, Sakura and Taiki were both sent flying backwards and away from her. 

Sakura caught her footing again easily, and then caught Taiki and set him down on the ground gently, and then stood still, grinning wider than Sasuke had ever seen her grin. 

"Alright, Temari-san, please surrender," she said and pointed at the other girl's upper arm. "I slapped a nice and powerful, Uzumaki-designed explosive note on your arm with a Permanent Sticking Technique. I'll peel it off if you surrender, but if you attack me, I'll set it off."

Surprise rippled through the crowd, especially in the foreign shinobi section at the mention of an Uzumaki-designed seal. 

The Sand girl grabbed at the note and tried to pull it off of her, but her nails couldn't catch on any edge. She cursed loudly and threw one hand into the air, glaring heatedly at Sakura.

"I surrender. Get this fucking thing off of me."

Sakura smiled pleasantly. She dismissed the Permanent Sticking Technique, which ruined the seal, and sauntered- No, actually sauntered, Sasuke realized- towards the stairs that would lead her back to the participant's box. 

Naruto began whining about how she'd ruined his seal before she even arrived. 

"Sakura-chan!" he shouted when she was in grabbing range, "What the fuck! You know those took me hours to make! They're so fucking delicate! Sakura-chaaaaaan!"

"Relax," she said, and held up the seal between two fingers. "She was listening in our direction. I wanted her to think I'd slapped her with one of the big ones, but I didn't. I wouldn't waste all your effort like that, Naruto-kun."

The announcer called another brief break, for snacks this time. 

Sasuke wanted to check over his teammates for wounds with a diagnostic technique, but he couldn't afford to use his chakra before going up against Gaara. He settled for a regular check-up, which didn't reveal anything more serious than a bruise. 

"Be careful," Naruto said lowly, more serious than usual. "Remember my, uh, secret?"

Sasuke took a moment to remember what Naruto was talking about, then nodded. Of course he remembered how scared Naruto had been to tell them. 

"I think..." Naruto paused, and after a few seconds, Hotaru nipped his fingers. He yelped, glared, then continued: "I think Gaara's like me. I'm not sure, but... be careful. Please forfeit if he starts like... going nuts."

Sasuke closed his eyes for a long moment. 

"Naruto!" Sakura hissed, "you couldn't have said something earlier!?"

"I didn't want to accuse him of something that wasn't true! Either way, it's only a problem if he like... Remember Wave and how I went a little crazy? Well, is he directs his version of that at you, it won't be good, y'know?"

"I'm going to try for a one-hit knock out," Sasuke said. 

Sakura scowled at Naruto but nodded. "That seems like the best bet, here. Be careful, Sasuke-kun."

He nodded, and then the announcer called him and Gaara down to the arena. Gaara vanished in a swirl of sand and Sasuke started walking towards the stairs. 

"Aw, cmon, Sasuke, don't break tradition," Naruto said with a wild, frantic grin as he grabbed him by the arm and hauled him towards the railing. 

"Naruto," Sasuke warned. 

"No," Sakura said, grabbing his other arm, "he's right!"

Without so much as a warning count, the two of them threw him over the railing. Chika, the traitor, laughed from the depths of his shirt. 

He landed on the ground more or less gracefully, and straightened up. He was pretty sure that nobody could see how hot his ears had gone, and he could at least pretend to have dignity in the face of his teammates throwing him out of a balcony. 

Gaara looked at him impassively. Sasuke wondered if he was actually thinking of anything at all, or if he was just staring blankly until he was told he was allowed to kill someone. 

"Begin," the proctor said. 

Sasuke was dodging a spike of sand before the proctor had even left the arena, and was, miliseconds later, firing up a minor lightning technique. He wanted to see how the sand would even react to lightning, just in case it was weird sand that didn't function the same, but also he didn't want to just hop directly to a chidori. He wanted to show some versitality, but also he didn't want to leave too much room for Gaara to kill him. 

The technique he'd picked as a test was a C-rank lightning technique that, more or less, forced sparks of lightning to hop between his hands and superheat anything that went between them. It could be powered down to heat food, or powered up to shock a large lake. 

Sasuke kept it at a middling level, and swept his arms so that a fresh spike of sand would go between his hands. 

The sand, against everything Sasuke knew about physics, turned to glass immediately. 

"Interesting," Gaara said, bland as ever, "But that won't save you. Mother wants your blood."

Sasuke deliberated for just a moment, then fired up a chidori. He was pretty sure that a creepy statement like that would immediately be followed by a sincere attempt to kill him, so it would be better to get this over with than to drag it out just for the sake of showing off a tiny bit more. 

He always had next round, right?

Chika licked his ear, and that was all the encouragement he needed to speed towards Gaara faster than an arrow and drive his chidori-coated fist into the other boy's chest, past his armor. 

There was a long pause, and then a scream. 

Sasuke recoiled, yanking at his arm to try to pull it out of the sand armor. It didn't budge. He yanked a little harder, a little more frantically, but it still didn't move and Gaara was still screaming. 

"Another one!" Chika yelped. "Quick!"

He fired off another Chidori, this one slightly less powerful, and yanked his arm out just as the sand exploded around Gaara like one of Naruto's worst explosive tags. Sasuke was lucky to have closed his eyes reflexively- the sand cut against him like dozens of kunai nicks. 

It took a little bit of effort, but he managed to fling himself away and stick to the far end of the arena wall. Something was wrong with this situation, and Sasuke wanted to get himself as far away from it as he could without forfeiting the match. 

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, "Sasuke get out of there! I was right!"

He didn't have a chance to follow up on Naruto's advice, because right as he finished speaking, the swirling sand solidified into a huge animalistic beast. 

"Well," Sasuke said, "Fuck."


	8. Sakura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LOOK AT THIS BIT RIGHT HERE FOR A HOT SECOND I GOT SOME WARNINGS FOR YALL
> 
> Okay, now that I have your attention. We've got some major character death happening here. I'm super duper sorry about what you're about to read, but uh. It's gotta happen unfortunately???? I know I've said I write this for fun, which is true, but also I'm, yknow, a fiction writer. I know when things Need To Happen. 
> 
> Anyway its my birthday so please don't be mean to me. Hit me up on sgt-bucky.tumblr.com if you wanna talk about what's happening, and again:
> 
> Major Character Death Ahead.

Sakura was moving before she even realized it, only distantly aware of Naruto shouting at Sasuke to move. All she could think of was to bodily remove Sasuke from that situation, and by the fucking gods she was going to do it. The idiot shouldn't have been doing this frontline combat nonsense that he was doing, trying to impress whoever thought the Uchiha were only good for that so he could advance in rank, which she knew was what he was trying to do.

She slammed into him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and kicked off of the ground with as much of her chakra as she could muster. She landed in the stands, near the shinobi section, and only then stopped to look around.

"They're sleeping," Sakura said. then turned to Sasuke.

Sasuke was wheezing a little- she must have grabbed him by the sternum- and wasn't paying a lick of attention to her or their surroundings.

A soft, heavy feeling slipped on top of her, and her eyes grew heavy for just a moment. A nap sounded just so good right now- she smacked herself, and then dismissed the genjutsu trying to take hold on her, then on Sasuke.

"Sasuke-kun, can you do an mass genjutsu dismissal?" she asked.

He nodded, and the tomoe in his eyes spun for just a second. Almost immediately, several shinobi woke up and looked around, startled.

"Oh my god!"

"What the fuck is that!?"

"Oh, shit-!"

Sakura whistled sharply to get their attention. When she had it, she said, "We're under attack. I don't know what's going on, but you all need to report to a superior officer to get orders on what the fuck to do. Gaara of the Sand is a jinchuriki, and he's wreaking havoc. We're going to rejoin with Naruto, and we're going to see if we can use his demon to subdue Gaara's."

"You're genin!" a younger chuunin said, then, "What demon?"

An older chuunin squinted at them warily and asked, "you know?"

"Naruto's our teammate and our friend," Sasuke said before Sakura could, "Of course we know. If we can't subdue it with Naruto's demon, we have a backup plan. Please, at least get the civilians out of here."

The older chuunin nodded and began shouting orders. The younger chuunin snapped to, though several gave Sakura and Sasuke confused looks.

"Over?" Sasuke asked.

"It's the fastest way back. Is Chika okay?"

"She's fine. Let's go."

And with that, the two of them kicked off from the railing and sailed through the air just out of Gaara's range, though he didn't bother to lash out at them as he was distracted by several jonin that were trying and failing to subdue him.

"Sasuke are you okay?" Naruto demanded, grabbing at him as soon as they landed in the participant's box again. "Did he hurt you? I'll kill him if he did!"

"I'm fine," Sasuke said. "Sakura has a plan."

Both boys turned to face her, waiting for instructions. She grimaced. "It's not so much a plan as an idea. Naruto, you remember in Wave, how you harnessed the Kyuubi's power?"

"I mean, not really. It's a blur from when I thought Sasuke died to when Haku told me to kill him," Naruto admitted, then paused and said, "Wait, you want me to…?"

"I have a backup if it doesn't work," Sasuke said. "But it's a backup plan. I'm not even sure I could actually do it, but I know it's supposed to be possible."

"How-?" Sakura shook her head. "No, there's no time. Naruto, go!"

Naruto glared but, because Kakashi-sensei had trained him so well to listen to Sakura in a battle, he obeyed. Sakura only hoped that her command wouldn't get him killed. She'd never forgive herself if he died because of her, and she knew it, but this was their best option to stop the rampaging jinchuriki.

Naruto hopped down into the arena opposite Gaara, and stood in that dorky pose that nobody had been able to make him quit doing when he concentrated.

Sakura bit her lip and grabbed at Sasuke's arm anxiously.

"He's got it," Sasuke said, the tomoe in his eyes spinning dizzily, "Sakura, he's got it!"

And then the air turned red around Naruto. Sakura hadn't quite remembered what the kyuubi's chakra had felt like. She'd been understandably distracted in Wave, thinking Sasuke was dead and all. She remembered now that it was bubbling in the air and making the humid heat of Konoha in summer even hotter. It reminded her of the feeling of stirring a boiling pot, except it covered her whole body and sank deep into her muscles and bones and spirit. It was almost malevolent, but not quite. Sakura felt like it was more… fury, and frustration, and a little bit of bitterness.

The boiling chakra began to surround Naruto, and she felt Sasuke tense under her hand.

"He's losing control," Sasuke said. "I need to help him."

"What?"

She looked, and Naruto wasn't doing his dorky pose anymore. He was shaking like a beast trying to stop itself from shaking with madness, and she could hear him snarl all the way up in the participant's box.

Sasuke pried her hand off of his arm and said, "Stay here. I'm going to do something stupid, probably. We need you to be in good condition so pick us both up afterwards, I think."

"What-?" He hopped down to join Naruto before she could finish her question. She grabbed at her hair and shouted, "Sasuke!"

But she stayed in the participant's box. He was right, if he was going to do something stupid, they'd need her to pick up their pieces and bring them to the hospital afterwards.

So she watched as Sasuke reached into the bubbling chakra. She watched his skin boil and evaporate as he reached for Naruto's face, and she watched as his skin healed, only to boil off again. She watched as he stared into Naruto's eyes, and she could only guess that his eyes were spinning, regardless of what, exactly, he was doing. She didn't want to ask after clan secrets, but she was thinking that she was going to have to after this.

Then- in a blink- Naruto was shaking himself off, and his body language was more like himself than that of a rabid animal.

He shouted a thanks to Sasuke and moved, and something happened in the meeting of the swirling sand and the boiling red chakra that created a flash and Sakura covered her eyes and when the stars cleared from her vision, both Naruto and Gaara were bounding off towards the forest past the village gates, swiping at each other and biting and screeching louder than any living creature had a right to be screeching.

Sakura let out a breath of relief and looked down to check on Sasuke.

"Fuck," she said, and threw herself down into the arena and started checking his pulse. "Oh, fuck, don't be dead, Sasuke, don't be fucking dead, okay? Please, asshole, please, don't be dead!"

"I'm fine," he said, then coughed. "I'm fine."

"Oh, thank god," she said, then sat back on her heels and looked around to see how the fighting was going.

Aside from the sudden appearance of a freaky purple box above the Hokage stand, most of the fights in the stands were wrapped up or just finishing. From what little she could see from her position, it looked like her comrades were winning and had taken what few Sand and Sound invaders that were still alive prisoner. The sounds of distant fighting were starting to fade, and she heard more shouts for medics than for backup.

"I think we're winning," she said. "You think Naruto will be able to wrangle that thing that Gaara turned into?"

Sasuke groaned. "Probably."

"Should we go after him?"

Sasuke groaned again. "Fuck, probably. Yeah, let me.."

Chika barked and bit his arm, and Sakura watched his skin grow back slowly. He thanked his dog quietly, then accepted Sakura's outstretched hand and let her haul him to his feet. Then, together with Taiki and Hotaru beside them, began following the path of wreckage the two jinchuriki had left in their wake.

"Shit," Sasuke muttered. "You don't think they…?"

"Crushed anyone?" she said lightly, then winced. "Let's hope not. Even if they did, let's just not tell him, yeah?"

Sasuke nodded.

Soon enough, they reached the fallout of whatever fight Naruto and Gaara had had.

"Heeeey guys!" Naruto called, and didn't move otherwise, "I won! Sakura, there's a seal in my pocket, can you put it on Gaara?"

Sakura darted to him and followed his instructions to find the seal- he really had too many pockets, but she supposed if he could find everything it was fine- and slapped the seal on Gaara as fast as she could.

"Thanks," Naruto said. "We're friends now, by the way. Gaara had some dumb ideas about the world, so I told him how he was wrong. He's going to be much nicer now, right, Gaara?"

"Yes," Gaara said softly. "I'm very sorry for the damage I caused."

Sakura felt a laugh bubble out of her before she could even fully register what was happening. "Naruto, you're going to have to tell us exactly how this all went down later. Sasuke, how is he?"

"Muscles gave out. Chakra is lower than average for him," he said, then poked Naruto in the ribs. "Otherwise, fine. Healthy, even. Move, let me check Gaara."

Sakura slid out of his way and sat down on the ground next to Naruto and looked back at the village. She was too tired to feel much of anything anymore, but even still something in her heart clenched at the sight of her home so completely destroyed. She was sure that crumbling building to the east had once been the Yamanaka dojo. Several norther apartment buildings were completely collapsed. Most of the destruction radiated out from the arena, but the east wall and the north gate were also severely damaged.

Konoha may have won, but it was at a steep cost.

But as Sakura looked at Naruto and Sasuke, who had begun bickering over nothing once more, and Hotaru and Chika, the latter of whom was sprawled across the back of the former, she could only feel relieved. Taiki laid his head in her lap, and she began petting him softly.

Her boys were safe. Not everything was alright, but her boys and all of their dogs were safe, and that's what mattered most to her, right now, in this brief moment of exhaustion.

Everything else could be dealt with later.

.

"I hate this," Naruto whined.

Sakura sighed heavily and dropped the lumber she'd been hauling for the construction crews. "Everyone hates this, Naruto. Please stop complaining and just do the work."

"Why don't you make a few clones?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto's expression lit up and Sakura groaned again. As if anyone needed a hundred Narutos running around trying to help. He was better today than he had been last week, but he was still annoying sometimes, when he got too excited. Two days ago, he'd gotten all three of them removed from the food kitchen nearby after splashing several civilians with very hot stew.

"No more than ten," Sakura ordered, hoping to minimize his crazy, "And they have to help with the job we've been assigned!"

He fist pumped the air and summoned exactly ten clones. They split off without him ordering them verbally, and Sakura could only hope that they would be actually helpful and not a huge nuisance.

"Great going, Sasuke," Sakura hissed.

He shrugged. "It shut him up, didn't it?"

Sakura grumbled, but he was right. She watched Naruto's clones for a moment, and saw that they were telling the workers that they were clones and then asking what to do. It looked like Sasuke's idea had worked, so she rolled her eyes and went to fetch a new pile of lumber from the ground to bring up.

The week so far had been very rough. They hadn't seen Sasuke for three days because the hospital had been so swamped with injuries they couldn't spare a single set of hands. He hadn't even come home to sleep- Sakura had found him curled up in a chair when she'd been sent to bring him home after the worst of it was over.

The death toll kept rising as the recovery crews kept finding corpses, though sometimes they found injured but living civilians and shinobi. Most of the shinobi had been found early, since they could let out chakra pulses to help the chakra sensors find them. The civilians were less lucky, and just had to wait for someone to start digging in a building. Sakura was pretty sure that the last of the rubble was being searched today, so they wouldn't have to worry anymore.

Sakura, of all of her people, was most worried about Naruto. He'd been vacillating between regular cheery Naruto and a depressed sullen Naruto that she wasn't used to seeing at all. It had taken her an embarrassingly long time to realize why, exactly, he was mourning. She originally thought that he was just sad about all of the deaths. It had taken Sasuke telling Naruto that the Third would be proud of him for getting Gaara away from innocents for her to realize that Naruto had been close enough to the Third to really think of him as his grandfather.

Today was one of his better days. Sakura thought that Kakashi might have had a talk with him, but she wasn't sure. It didn't seem like the sort of thing Kakashi did, but then again, he'd been very weird this past week, too.

"I hope Jiraya finds Princess Tsunade," he'd said idly once, "The other candidates don't look quite as good for the seat as she does."

Another time, he'd pulled them aside and said so quietly that they almost couldn't hear him, "Don't ever join an organization called Root. It's not worth it. I want all three of you to swear on your dogs' lives, understood?"

Sasuke had complained to her that he'd caught Kakashi's clone stalking him. He hadn't wanted her to do anything about it, he had just wanted to complain about it.

Naruto had told her that he'd seen Kakashi arguing with an ANBU with brown hair about someone named "Danzo" and said that Kakashi had seemed more worried than Naruto had seen him since Wave.

Sakura had been pulled aside by him after dinner one night, and she was still turning their conversation over in her head:

"Come here," he'd said, waving her towards the dojo. "It's time for another Hatake Clan Leader Lesson."

She'd followed him to the dojo and sat and listened while he talked and talked about how to do various duties she'd be expected to do as the Clan Leader, and she absorbed all of the information the way she always did. There wasn't even a worry that she'd forget or remembered the information he was telling her.

And yet he kept repeating himself.

"Kakashi-sensei," she told him, "you know you don't need to repeat things for me. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, scratching fitfully at his chin through his mask. "I'm perfectly fine. Sasuke himself gave me a clean bill of health. Why do you ask, Sakura-chan?"

She frowned at him. "You're acting really weird."

He waved at her idly. "No, no, don't worry about it. Nothing's wrong."  
"That's what someone would say if there was something wrong but they didn't want to tell someone about it," Sakura replied, squinting at him suspiciously. "Kakashi-sensei, I know I'm just a genin but if you need to talk about it...."  
"Anyway!" Kakashi said, "The secret to dealing with other clans is...!"  
Sakura let it go. Obviously he didn't want to talk about it for whatever reason. She hoped that he was simply being stubborn, but she had the worst feeling that he was hiding something dangerous.   
.

"Taiki, get the door, please?" Sakura said, struggling to hold onto all of the grocery bags.

He barked and hooked his claws onto the edge of the sliding door to the kitchen, and opened it just enough for Sakura to stumble through and drop the groceries on the kitchen table.

"I'm home!" she shouted.

She began putting away the fresh groceries, and only halfway through realized that nobody had responded. She frowned. Her mom and Kakashi were both supposed to be home. The boys she could understand still being out- Sasuke had said something about tending to the Uchiha graves, and she was sure Naruto had at least gone out for ramen. They should be home soon, but…

She went cold. Something was wrong.

"Taiki," she said.

"I feel it," he replied. "I'll check on your mom, you check on Kakashi."

Sakura nodded, and slowly made her way to Kakashi's bedroom. In the distance, she heard Naruto announce that he and Sasuke were home, but she didn't bother to reply. They'd come looking for her.

She paused just outside of Kakashi's bedroom to palm a kunai, and threw open the door was fast as she could.

For a moment, she didn't understand what she was looking at. Why was there red everywhere? Why was Kakashi laying like that? What was that horrible choking noise he was making?

Then she screamed.

Her boys came tumbling into the room, demanding to know what was going on, but she barely heard them. She was kneeling in Kakashi's blood, and she didn't know what to do and her heart was stopped and hear lungs ached and her vision was starting to blur and-

"Sakura," Sasuke shouted, his hands wrapped around Kakashi's throat, "Sakura, get over here, he wants you! Please!"

She stumbled forward on her knees and knelt down close to him to hear him.

"Run, kids, run," he whispered, "he's too strong for you, leave, you have to run…"

"What?" Naruto whispered. "Run where? Who?"

Kakashi gurgled, and whispered just once more, "leave."

"Leave where?" Sasuke demanded. "Kakashi-sensei, hold on, I can-"

Kakashi reached up with what Sakura knew had to be the last of his strength and flung Sasuke's hand away from his throat. "No. Too late. Run."

And then he fell limp. Sakura reached out and shook him. He didn't respond. She shook him again. She grabbed at his throat to hold back the slowing blood, only for Naruto to pull her hands away. She screamed at him, wordless in a way she hadn't been in years.

"We have to go," Naruto said calmly. "He was warning us. Whoever did this to him is going to do this to us. We have to go, Sakura."

"I'll take care of Kakashi," Sasuke said, his voice breaking on the name, "You two clean yourselves up. Chika, Hotaru, pack up. Where's Tsubaki?"

Taiki skid into the room, panting, his eyes wild. "Tsubaki's- Oh, fuck…"

"My mom…?" Sakura croaked. "Taiki, my mom, please, tell me she's-! She has to be, Taiki, please!"

He whined and shook his head.

Sakura couldn't stop the wail that ripped out of her, and then there was a blank nothing.

When she came to once more, she was being carried in Sasuke's arms. His hands were clean of blood, he was wearing his travelling gear, and they were moving very, very fast.

"She's awake," Sasuke said softly.

"We can't stop yet," Naruto said, "Pakkun can smell our pursuers still."

"What's going on?" Sakura asked, feeling calmer than she had any right to be after discovering her mother and teacher were dead and they had to run away from their home because they were next. "Why am I calm?"

"Seal," Sasuke said. "We'll take it off when we're safe."

Sakura hummed an agreement. "Let me down, I can run."

He dropped her after a long moment, and she landed on her feet, and followed after her boys. They were right. It wasn't safe for her to be breaking down. She would be angry about the calming seal later, but she understood the benefits of it for now. It was a good decision.

After all, she had to be alive to get revenge.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going way off canon because A) some of it never made sense and B) even when it did make sense it was super convoluted so. I'm simplifying. 
> 
> Also, this is not the end of the story! Updates will start again in November, cause I'm going to be writing in this universe for NaNoWriMo! I'm going to be doing some "filler" chapters in a separate work, and then you'll get the next proper installment. Updates will likely be sporadic but hopefully frequent!

"Are you Sakura Hatake's father?"   
  
He stops his move to slam the door on the ninja in front of him. Something deep in his gut tells him that something bad has happened to his poor deluded little girl.   
  
"I am," he says. "What happened? Is she okay?"  
  
The ninja-- an expressionless man wearing the regular uniform, without any real identifying features--  says, "Sakura Hatake has been declared a traitor for murdering her teacher in cold blood and seducing two valuable assets away from the village. I need to take you in for questioning. Please come quietly."  
  
"She what?" he says, and can't bring himself to fight when cuffs are placed on his wrists. "Sakura? My daughter?"  
  
"Sir, please remain quiet until we arrive," the ninja says, "Or else I will have to use drastic measures. We don't want to frighten anyone with information."  
  
He goes, silently, stunned. His little girl, who loved her beautiful pink hair and wanted to marry a handsome boy one day, a missing-nin who was able to kill a powerful jonin? It didn't seem possible, and besides, she'd appeared to adore her teacher. As much as he'd hated what the man was turning his daughter into, he was neither blind nor stupid. His little girl loved that man, and though she didn't understand that it was wrong for a young woman like her to become a lowly kunoichi, he knew that she did, truly, love Kakashi Hatake.  
  
He says, one last time, "This can't be right..." and then he sees nothing for a long while.   
  
.  
  
"Lord Jiraya, I have news from the new Hokage."  
  
Jiraya squinted at the pale boy standing at attention in front of him. His expression was carefully blank in a way that made his skin itch. Then the words registered, and he scowled. "I'm searching for the new Hokage, kid, pull the other one."  
  
"My orders are to inform you that you are to cease searching for Lady Tsunade and report to Lord Danzo immediately for new orders. I am also to inform you that Naruto Uzumaki has been seduced away from Konoha by his teammate after said teammate murdered Kakashi Hatake."  
  
He blinks for a long moment, then asks, "the Uchiha?"  
  
"No," the boy says, "Sakura Hatake."  
  
That doesn't make any sense. The girl was strong- he'd seen her fighting during the chuunin exams, briefly, before he'd had to run off and deal with some giant snakes- but she wasn't strong enough to murder Kakashi. Something was fishy here, and whoever had put out this lie wasn't even bothering to make it a believable one.   
  
"Alright kid," Jiraya says, waving him off idly. He hates this, he hates that he doesn't see another option but... "I'll be by as soon as I can. I have some contacts to speak to before I return."  
  
The boy nods and disappears.   
  
Jiraya sighs just a little. He doesn't dare show more of what he's thinking than that- he knows that that little boy is watching him. Inside men have the most dangerous jobs, but it's a very necessary one. He just never thought he'd ever have to be one. This was going to be a very, very rough job.  
  
.  
  
"Itachi, I have some interesting information for you," Sasori says from the depths of his squat, ugly puppet. "It's about your old village. I know you like to keep tabs..."  
  
Itachi says nothing, but looks Sasori in his puppet's eyes.  
  
"I heard that the new hokage has been chosen," Sasori says. "Danzo."  
  
White-hot rage flashes through Itachi's chest and makes his lungs itch. He holds back a cough and sits in the discomfort that brings him. Anything to distract from his inappropriately timed anger. Sasori nods at nothing. Itachi knows that he has given no signal of caring about the name.   
  
He adds, "Oh, and I also heard that  your little brother has followed in your footsteps, though the official story is quite different from the real events."  
  
  
Itachi continues staring at Sasori, waiting. He'll get to the point eventually, and when he does, Itachi can leave and work off this rage in a productive and safe manner.   
  
"Yes, the official story is that he's been seduced by his female teammate, who supposedly killed their jonin teacher, but it was obviously a job done by ROOT. Too clean for even a newly promoted chuunin, honestly. Not to mention, she supposedly also seduced her other teammate, you know, the kyuubi jinchuriki, away as well. The bounties are pretty high, too. Dead or alive."  
  
Danzo promised to keep Sasuke safe. Itachi promised to spy on Akatsuki so long as Sasuke was safe. Sasuke was alone but for his two chuunin teammates and their dogs, maybe Kakashi-sempai's dogs as well, if they were lucky. Sasuke had a bounty of his head, dead or alive. Sasuke was no longer under Danzo's protection.  
  
The deal was off.   
  
"I see," Itachi said, then stood. "If you'll excuse me, I need to speak with my partner about tracking them down. It might be time to take the kyuubi."  
  
"Good luck," Sasori says.  
  
Itachi finds Kisame, and tells him it's time to leave. Kisame, he can tell, knows that something is different, but he comes along anyway.   
  
"What's up, Ita-chan?" Kisame asks when they're out of Rain country, out of range of Pein's ears. "You finally going to tell me something instead of deflecting, hm? Not that I don't appreciate you tryin' real hard to not lie to me, but I gotta admit I'm curious."  
  
Itachi nods. "A dangerous, powerful man has broken an agreement with me. I cannot retaliate whilst still serving in Akatsuki. I wanted to tell you in person, as well as ask if you might like to remain with me."  
  
Kisame raises an eyebrow. "You're asking me to leave Akatsuki after I made a promise to stick around? Why?"  
  
"I did not kill my clan," Itachi says instead of answering. "Danzo Shimada orchestrated it, and asked me to take the blame so that I could spy on Akatsuki. I agreed, so long as he would spare and protect my brother. He agreed. My brother is no longer a Konoha shinobi, and instead, now has a bounty on his head. I cannot allow that."  
  
"Oof," Kisame says, his voice lighter than the glint in his eyes. "What do I get if I bail on Akatsuki and stick with you?"  
  
Itachi shrugs. "I don't know, but I appreciate your company, and we fight well together. I wanted to extend an offer, at the least. Thank you for humoring me. As a last favor, I would like to ask for a head start, should you decide to kill me."  
  
Kisame laughs, reaches out, and ruffles Itachi's hair before shrugging off the black robe. "Nah, kid, don't worry. Let's go kill some liars, huh?”

  
Itachi drops the robe covering his own shoulders on top of Kisame's, and smiles for the first time in months.

  


.  
Tenzo knows that something is wrong before the ROOT agent appears in his home. There's something missing from the collective chakra of the village. He tries to tell himself that it's just the large losses of life from the invasion that's bugging his senses. He knows that it's not true.  


"Report to the Hatake compound immediately," he says, then disappears again.   


It's a reflexive move to appear silently in Kakashi's old house. He's been here many times over the years, and even more often more recently, to train Naruto when he could. Usually, the places feels like static electricity and smells like dog. At first, he hated the sensation and the smell, but then he got used to it to the point that he hardly noticed it at all.   


There's blood in the air and the static electricity has dissipated like it was never there to begin with.   
He follows the scent of blood until he's standing directly over Kakashi's body. It's surreal. It feels like a sick prank. It's wrong, it can't be true, not Kakashi, not like this-   


Kakashi's body lies on the ground, cold.   


Tenzo knows he's being tested. He knows he's going to fail. He doesn't care.   


Kakashi's hand is covering a spot of blood that's different. It isn't pooling from a wound, it's been delicately, shakily drawn there by an exhasted, dying hand. The blood reads: "ROOT".  


Tenzo nods carefully, as though the emotions he still doesn't have a proper grip on weren't swirling inside him like a devastating forest fire. He knows he is being watched,  but he has to do this. For Kakashi, the man who got him out of that hell hole before he understood that it was a hell hole, he needed to do this.   


It's a quick trip through the house to collect the few valuables that Kakashi had. He makes sure to grab something from Sakura's mother, as well. He might not have met girl, but Kakashi loved her like a daughter, and he'd want her to have whatever she could of both him and her mother. Tenzo knew the consequences of what he was about to do, and didn't care.   


He had only one place to go before he left, following after Kakashi's heir's footsteps.  


He knocked on the door, and was answered a mere moment later. Gai, for a brief moment, looked disappointed, as though he expected Kakashi himself to appear on his doorstep. Then he looks horrified, devestated, and Tenzo knows that he knows.  


Tenzo nods, then says, "He would want you to stay. Don't bring suspicion to yourself. We'll figure this out."  


"You are not staying," Gai says.   


"No, I'm not."  


Gai nods. "Good luck. Tell Sakura-chan that I believe in her and whatever she decides to do."

 

Tenzo nods and disappears.


End file.
